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CONSISTING  OF   A   SERIES  OF 

DENOMINATIONAL   HISTORIES  PUBLISHED   UNDER  THE   AUSPICES  OF 

THE  AMERICAN  SOCIETY  OF  CHURCH  HISTORY 

(^►enetaf  (Editors 

Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.        Bishop  John  F.  Hurst,  D.D.,LL.  D. 
Rt.  Rev.  H.  C.  Potter,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.  Rev.  E.  J.  Wolf,  D.  D. 
Rev.  Geo.  P.  Fisher,  D.  D.,  LL.D.      Henry  C.  Veddlr,  M.  A. 
Rev.  Samuel  M.  Jackson,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Volume  IX 


(American  C^mx^  ^ieforg 


A  HISTORY 


OF   THE 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


BY 


THOMAS  O'GORMAN 

PROFESSOR  OF  CHURCH  HISTORY  IN   THE  CATHOLIC 
UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


0 


(Jteuu^orft 

Z^t  C^rtfitian  literature  Co. 


MDCCCXCV 


Copyright,  1895, 
By  The  Christian   Litekati'RE  Company. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Bibliography xi 

IXTROIUrCIlDN I 


BOOK   I.     THE  MISSION   PERIOD. 

PART    I.       THE    -SrANTSII    MISSIONS. 

CHAP.  I. — Spain  in  North  America. — The  Vestiges  of  Spain 13 

CHAP.  II. — The  PRELiiMiNARY  Explorations  in  Florida  (1513-65). 
— Ayllon's  Expedition. — The  Abolitionist  Montesinos. — De  Soto's 
Expedition. — Apostolic  Evangehzing. — Tlie  Martyrdom  of  Luis 
Cancer. — Intrusion  of  France. — An  Inhuman  Deed 17 

CHAP.  III.— The  Permanent  Settlement  of  Florida  (1565- 
1762). — Recall  of  the  Jesuits. — Dangers  to  the  Missions. — The 
Missions  Attacked. — The  Bishops  of  Florida. — ^War  with  the  Eng- 
lish Colonies   ^^ 

CHAP.  IV. — The  Preliminary  Explorations  of  New  Mexico 
(1539-82). — The  Communal  Pueblo. — Legendary  Traditicms. — 
Mark  of  Nizza. — Martyrdom  of  John  of  Padilla. — More  Martyrs  .  .      45 

CHAP.  V. — The  Spanish  Occupaiton  of  New  Mexico — the  Rise 
and  Decline  of  the  Missions  (1598-1848). — Discouragement. 
— Canonical  Condition. — Church  and  State. — Indian  Paganism. — 
Destruction  of  the  Missions. — Reconquest. — Opposition  to  the 
Bishop. — Signs  of  Decline. — Reports  of  Decadence. — Annexation 
to  the  United  States 56 

CHAP.  VI. — The  Missions  in  Arizon.a  and  Texas. — Father  Kino. 
— The  Mission  of  Tucson. — Origins  of  the  Texas  Missions. — Father 
Anthony  Margil. — Failure  of  the  Missions. — Annexation  to  tlie 
United  States 7') 

CHAP.  VII. — The  Rise  of  the  Califorman  Missions. — The  Car 
melites. — Discovery  of  San  Francisco  Bay. — The  Mission  System. 
— The  Mission  Properties. — Serra's   Report. — The  Pious  Fund. — 
Charges  and  Countercharges 89 

V 


1924  8'73 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAP.  VIII. — The  Decline  of  the  Missions. — La  Perouse  in  Cal- 
ifornia.— Secularization  of  the  Missions. — Ruin  of  the  Missions. — 
The  First  Bishop  of  Monterey. — Success  and  Failure 104 

PART    II.       THE    FRENCH    MISSIONS. 

CHAP.  IX. — France  in  North  America. — Early  French  Explorers. 
— Jacques  Cartier. — Centers  and  Routes. — The  Home  of  the  Iro- 
quois.— The  French  Missions 1 14 

CHAP.  X. — The  Missions  in  Maine. — Port  Royal. — St.  Sauveur. — 
Destruction  of  Port  Royal. — The  Indians  of  Maine. — European 
Claimants  to  Maine. — Druillettes  in  Boston. — Acadia  Ceded  to  Eng- 
land.— Rale  in  Maine. — Tlie  Murder  of  Rale. — The  Death  of  Rale. 
— Perseverance  of  the  Abenakis 124 

CHAP.  XL — The  Missions  in  New  York. — Hostility  of  the  Iroquois. 
— Jogues  and  Bressani. — Death  of  Jogues. — The  Missions  Planned. 
— The  Missions  Founded. — The  Missions  Suspended. — The  Mis- 
sions Renewed. — Quarrels  of  England  and  France. — Decline  of 
the  Missions. — The  Remnants  of  the  Iroquois 147 

CHAP.  XII. — The  Northwestern  Missions. — The  Jesuits  on  Lake 
Superior. — 'Mission  Centers. — Success  of  the  Missionaries. — Mar- 
quette on  the  Mississippi. — Death  of  Marquette. — Sieur  de  la 
Salle. -^The  Recollects. — Hennepin  on  the  Upper  Mississippi.—^ 
Return  of  Hennepin. — Hennepin's  Veracity. — Contending  Policies. 
— Mission  at  Lake  Pepin. — Causes  of  Failure 168 

CHAP.  XIII. — The  Illinois  Missions. — Allouez  in  Illinois. — Kas- 
kaskia. — Father  Mermet. — French  Settlements. — France  Loses  Illi- 
nois.— Decline  of  the  Illinois  Missions 194 

CHAP.  XIV. — The  Louisiana  Missions. — French  Occupation  of 
Louisiana. — Charlevoix  in  Louisiana. — Trouble  in  New  Orleans. — 
Spanish  Occupation  of  Louisiana. — Complaints  of  the  Bishop 206 


part.   III.       THE   ENGLISH    MISSIONS. 

CHAP.  XV. — The  Beginnings  of  Catholicity  in  Maryland  (1634- 
48). — The  Maryland  Charter. — Status  of  Church  in  Maryland. — 
The  Jesuits  in  Maryland. — Act  of  Toleration. — Increase  of  Mission- 
aries.— The  Jesuits  in  New  York. — The  Doom  of  Religious  Lib- 
erty   ! 217 

CHAP.  XVI. — The  Penal  Period. — Penal  Legislation. — Apostasy 
of  the  House  of  Baltimore. — Penal  Laws  in  Virginia. — Beginnings 
of  Baltimore. — Penal  Law  in  New  York. — Missions  out  of  Mary- 
land      234 


CONTENTS.  \n 

PACK 

CHAP.  XVII. — The  Dawn  of  Liberty. — Opposition  to  a  Bishopric. 
— The  Quebec  Act. — Softening  of  Prejudices. — Catholics  in  the 
Revolutionary  War. — Religious  Equality 247 

CHAP.  XVIII. — The  Prefecture  Apostolic. — Franklin  and  Car- 
roll.— John  Carroll. — Carroll  Prefect  Apostolic. — Difficulties  of  the 
Position. — Trusteeism. — Petition  for  a  Bishop. — Address  to  Wash- 
ington      259 


BOOK    II.     THE   ORGANIZED   CHURCH. 

PART    I.       THE    GROWTH   OF    THE    CHURCH    FROM    THE    BEGINNING 
OF   THE     HIERARCHY     TO     THE     FIRST     PROVINCIAL     COUNCIL 

OF  Baltimore  (i  790-1829). 

CHAP.  XIX. — The  Episcopate  of  Carroll  (1790-1815). — Visit  to 
Boston. — Trusteeism. — Restoration  of  the  Jesuits. — Tenure  of 
Church  Property. — The  Church  in  Kentucky. — The  West  and  the 
South.- — ^Washington  and  Carroll. — Erection  of  New  Sees. — Du 
Bourg  in  New  Orleans. — European  Intrigues. — Death  of  Carroll  .  .    275 

CHAP.  XX. — The  Province  of  Baltimore  (1815-29). — Richmond 
made  a  Bishopric. — Marechal  and  the  Jesuits. — Death  of  Marechal. 
— John  England. — Cheverus,  Bishop  of  Boston. — Fenwick,  Bishop 
of  Boston. — Father  Kohlman  in  New  York. — Bishop  Dubois. — 
Bishop  Conwell. — The  Hogan  Schism. — Trusteeism  Condemned 
by  Rome. — Mistake  of  Bishop  Conwell 299 

CHAP.  XXI. — The  Northwest  anu  the  Southwest  (1808-29). — 
The  Diocese  of  Bardstown. — Erection  of  Cincinnati. — The  Diocese 
of  New  Orleans.- — Resignation  of  Bishop  Du  Bourg. — Bishop  Ro- 
sati. — Catholicity  in  Florida. — First  Provincial  Council  of  Balti- 
more.— A  Coming  Danger 324 

PART  II.     THE  growth  OF  THE  CHURCH   FROM  THE  FIRST  I'KOVIN- 

CIAL   COUNCIL   OF    BALTIMORE    TO    THE    FIRSr    PLENARY 

COUNCIL  (1829-52). 

CHAP.  XXII. — Baltimore  and  its  Suffragans  (1829-52). — 
Growth  of  the  West. — Provincial  Councils. — Increase  of  Bishop- 
rics.— New  Provinces. — Last  Years  of  Bishop  England. — Charles- 
ton 4nd  Savannah. — End  of  Trusteeism  in  Philadel])hia. — Phila- 
delphia and  Pittsburg. — Native  American  Riots.  —  Prudence  of 
.     Bishop  Kenrick. — The  Rt.  Rev.  Michael  O'Connor 340 

CHAP.  XXIII. — New  York  AND  its  Suffragans  (1829-52). — M.wia 
Monk. — Bishop  Hughes  ancl  Trusteeism. — The  School  Question 
in  New  York. — Bishop  Hughes  and  the  School  Question. — A  School 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Compromise. — Know-nothingism  in  New  York. — New  York  an 
Archbishopric.^Tlie  Diocese  of  Buffalo. — Burning  of  the  Charles- 
town  Convent. — Riotous  Condition  of  Boston. — The  Church  in  New 
England 363 

CHAP.  XXIV. — The  Provinces  of  Cincinnati  and  New  Orleans 
(1829-52). — Bishop  Haget. — Death  of  Bishop  Flaget.- — Diocese 
of  Detroit. — Bishop  Brute. — Diocese  of  Vincennes. — Diocese  of 
New  Orleans. — Diocese  of  Mobile. — Natchez  and  Little  Rock. — 
Religious  Condition  of  Texas. — Texas  Annexed 387 

CHAP.  XXV. — The  Province  oe  St.  Loins  and  the  Pacific 
Coast  (1829-52). — Diocese  of  St.  Louis.  —  Bishop  Loras. — Dio- 
cese of  Chicago. —  Bishop  Henni. — Diocese  of  St.  Paul. — Religious 
Condition  of  New  Mexico.— The  North  Pacific  Coast. — First  Plen- 
ary Council  of  Baltimore. — A  New  Period 408 

PART     III.       the     growth     OF    THE     CHURCH     FROM     THE     FIRST 

plenary  to  the  second  plenary  council  of 
Baltimore  (1852-66). 

CHAP.  XXVI.— The  Church  in  the  South  (1852-66).— Bedini's 
Report. — Church  and  Civil  War. — ArchbishopSpalding. — Syllabus. 
— Death  of  Lincoln. — Bishop  Neumann. — Bishop  O'Connor. — 
Pius  IX.  and  the  Confederacy. — The  Southwest. — School  Law  in 
Texas 427 

CPIAP.  XXVIL— The  Church  in  the  North  (1852-66).— Political 
Mission  of  Archbishop  Hughes. — Diocese  of  Brooklyn. — Diocese 
of  Boston. — Know-nothingism  in  Kentucky. — The  Church  in  Ken- 
tucky.— The  Church  in  the  West. — Diocese  of  Nashville. — The 
Church  in  the  Nortiiwest. — The  Church  on  the  Pacific  Coast.- — The 
Second  Plenary  Council. — Appointment  of  Bishops. — .Strength  of 
the  Church 446 

PART   IV.      FROM    THE    SECOND    PLENARY   COUNCIL   TO   THE    ESTAB- 
LISHMENT   OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    DELEGATION   (1866-93). 

CHAP.  XXVIIL— The  Present  Hierarchy.— The  Apostolic  Dele- 
gation.— Vatican  Council. — Cardinal  McCloskey. — .\rchl)ishop  Pur- 
cell. — Province  of  New  Orleans. — Province  of  Milwaukee. — West- 
ern Provinces. — Result  of  a  Century. — General  Summary 470 

CHAP.  XXIX. — Concluding  Remarks. — Losses  Exaggerated. — 
Testimony  of  History. — Testimony  of  Statistics. — Shea's  Computa- 
tion.— Loss  and  Gain. — The  Councils. — Procedure  of  Councils. — 
Character  of  tlie  Legislation 488 


HISTORY    OF   THE    ROMAN   CATHOLIC  CHURCH. 


BY 


Rev.  T.   O'CORMAN, 
Professor  of  Chi'kch  History,  Cai  iioi  u    University,  Washington,  D.  C. 


IX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


The  Vinland  Etisode. 


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Coiigres  International  des  Amcricanistcs.      1875—90. 
Cxsnatz,  History  of  Greenland.     London,  1820. 

De  Costa,  The  Pre-Colurubian  Discovery  of  America  by  the  No7-thme7i.     Al- 
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Fiske,  The  Discovery  of  America.      Vol.  i.,  chap.  ii.      Boston,  1892. 
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Staff,  Topographical  Department,  Copenhagen,  1893. 
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1874. 
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Rafn,  Antiqiiitates  Americanie. 

Reeves,  I  he  Finding  of  Wineland  the  Good.      London,  1890. 
Smith,  Toulmin,  The  Discovery  by  the  Northmen  in  the  Tenth  Century. 

London,  1842. 
Wheaton,  The  iVorthmen. 

The  Spanish  Missions. 

Arlegui,  Cronica  de  Zacatecas. 
Bancroft,  G.,  History  of  tlie  I'nited  States. 
Barcia,  linsayo  Cronologico. 
Beavimont,  Cronica  de  Michoacan. 
Betancurt,  Teatro  Mexicano. 

xi 


xii  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Bitllarhim  Ord.  F.  F.  Minor.  S.  P.  Francisci. 

ColUcion  de  Docrttiientos  para  la  storia  de  Mexico. 

Cnviica  Serafica. 

Duran,  Storia  de  los  Indios. 

Gillow,  Eulogio  G.,  Apnntes  Historicos.      Mexico,  1889. 

Meiiologio  Franciscano. 

Sazagun,  Storie  de  las  Casas  de  Niteva  Espana. 

Shea,  History  of  the  Catholic  Missions.      New  York,  1855. 

,   'J'lie  Catholic  Church  in  the  Colonial  Days.      New  York,   1886. 

Vera,  Fortino  Hipolito,  Apuntamientos  Historicos.      Mexico,  1893. 

Florida. 

Brewer,  Alabama.      Montgomery,  1872. 

Charlevoix,  P.  de,  I/istoi re  la  A'ouvelle  France.     Vol.  i.      Paris,  1744.    ■ 

De  Ore,  Luis,  IHstoria  de  los  Aldrtires  de  Florida.      1604. 

Fairbanks,  History  0/  Florida. 

Fiske,  John,    Ike  Discovery  of  America.      Vol.  ii.,  chap.  xi.      Boston  and 

New  York,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
Parkman,   The  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  Nezv  World. 
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London,  1763. 
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iS4,v 
Thwaites,  Reuben  Gold,   The  Colonies.     Chaps,  iv.  and  xiii.     Longmans, 

(Ireen  iS;  Co.,   i<S(.^2. 
Williams,  Territory  of  Florida.     New  York,  1837. 
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Edited  by  Justin  Winsor.      New  York  and  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin 

&  Co. 

Nf.w  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  Texas. 

Bancroft,  H.  H.,  History  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona.  Vol.  xvii.  San 
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Bandelier,  A.  F.,  An  Historical  Introduction  to  Studies  among  the  Seden- 
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— ,  Indians  of  the  South-west.     Cambridge,  1890. 

,    '/■/,■(■  Cildcd  Man.     New  York,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1893. 

Blackmar,  Frank  W.,  Spanish  Institutions  of  the  Southeast.  Baltimore, 
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Defouri,  //istorical  Sketch  of  A-e7o  Mexico. 

,    '///(•  Martyrs  of  New  Mexico. 

Ladd,  Horatio  6.,  The  Story  of  AW'  Mexico.  Boston,  D.  Lothrop  &  Co., 
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Lummis,  Charles  F.,  The  land  of  Poco  Tienepo.     New  York,  1893. 

Morfi,  Meiiiorias  para  la  Historia  de- la  Pro7uncia  de  Texas. 

Prince,  L.  Bradford,  Historical  Sketches  of  A-ew  Mexico.  New  York, 
Leggat  Brothers,   1883. 

Shea,  Penalosd's  Quivira  Expedition.      New  York,  1882. 

Yoakum,  History  of  Texas.      1856. 


BlBLIOGRAPilV.  xiii 

> 
California. 

Adam,  Life  of  Ven.  Padre  Juniperro  Serra.      San  Francisco,   1884. 
Bancroft,  H.  H.,    California.      Vols,    xviii.-xx.      In  vol.  xviii.,   chap,  ii., 

is  given  a  very  complete  bibliography  on  the  history  of  California. 
Blackmar,  Spanish  Institutions  of  ike  Soiit/nuest. 
Dwinelle,  Colonial  History  of  San  Francisco. 
Gleason,  History  of  California. 
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The  French  Missions. 

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Arc/lives  of  the  Archbishopric  of  Quebec. 

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XIV 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Gravier,  Le  R.  P.  Jacques,  Relation  on  Journal  de  Voyage  en  lyoo.  De 
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Greswell,  William  Parr,  The  History  of  the  Domijiion  of  Canada.  Ox- 
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Hennepin,  Louis,  N'onvelle  Decouverte.     Amsterdam,  1698. 

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lUnrJOGRAPHY.  XV 

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Archives  of  the  Diocesan  Chanceries. 

Berichte  der  Leopoldinen  Stiftiing. 

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1S31. 
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THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Origins — The  Vinland  Episode. 

The  Catholic  Church  is  conspicuous  in  the  United 
States.  The  number  of  her  adherents,  the  wealth  of  her 
churches,  the  activity  of  her  religious  orders  of  men  and 
women,  her  parochial  schools,  colleges,  academies,  and 
universities,  her  compact  and  widespread  hierarchical  or- 
ganization, attract  universal  attention.  Whether  the  ob- 
servers be  friends  or  foes,  she  cannot  be  and  is  not  ignored. 
She  is  a  huge  fact  in  the  Hfe  of  the  republic.  Her  pres- 
ent homogeneity  is  remarkable  if  we  consider  the  various 
sources  whence  she  sprang  and  the  various  elements  of 
which  she  is  composed.  The  Southern  States  were  origin- 
ally evangelized  from  Spain.  Florida,  Alabama,  Texas, 
New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  California  received  the  gospel 
from  Cuba  and  Mexico  at  the  hand  of  missionaries  who 
came  from  Spain,  working  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Spanish 
bishops  residing  in  Spanish  colonies.  Their  work  began 
early  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Northern  States  were 
evangelized  by  missionaries  who  came  from  France  and 
were  under  the  jurisdiction  of  French  bishops.  Their  work 
began  in  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.     The 


2  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 

Central  States  on  the  Atlantic  coast  were  evangelized  by 
missionaries  who  came  from  England  in  the  "  Ark  "  and 
"  Dove  "  in  the  seventeenth  century  ;  they  were  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London  until  Balti- 
more was  erected  into  an  episcopal  see.  Spain,  France,  and 
England,  and  back  of  them  Rome,  Jerusalem,  Bethlehem, 
and  Nazareth,  are  the  sources  of  our  Catholicity.  The  inde- 
pendence of  the  American  church  from  any  intermediate 
authority,  and  its  direct  dependence  on  the  center  of  Catho- 
licity, was  contemporaneous  with  our  national  independ- 
ence. Since  then,  as  the  various  Territories  that  had  been 
French  and  Spanish  colonies  were  annexed  to  the  United 
States,  their  missions  also  were  absorbed  into  our  inde- 
pendent American  church  organization.  By  this  process 
of  extension  and  evolution  was  formed  the  church  of  the 
United  States — the  compact,  homogeneous  body  that  is 
the  admiration  of  the  Catholic  world,  and  which  received 
but  the  other  day  its  crowning  in  the  appointment  of  a 
resident  apostolic  delegate  in  the  capital  of  the  nation. 

The  history  of  the  Catholic  Church  naturally  divides  itself 
into  two  epochs :  the  mission  epoch  and  the  organized 
epoch.  The  former  extends  from  the  earliest  arrival  of 
the  Catholic  missionary  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  the  appointment  of  Bishop  Carroll  in  1 789,  as 
to  the  regions  under  English  control  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolutionary  War ;  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  the  dates  of  their  annexation  to  the  Union,  as 
to  the  regions  that  were  French  or  Spanish  in  i  789.  This 
period  again  subdivides  itself  into  three  parts  :  the  Spanish, 
French,  and  English  missions.  The  latter  epoch  is  that  of 
the  organized  American  church  extending  from  1 789  to  our 
own  day.  During  this  century  the  church  has  grown  by 
accretions  from  Spain,  by  accretions  from  France,  by  the 
natural  increase  of  her  first  Catholic  colonists,  by  conver- 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

sions  to  her  fold,  and  above  all,  by  the  vast  emigration  to 
her  shores  from  Catholic  lands. 

But  before  entering  upon  this  study,  a  word  about  an 
episode  which  has  the  enchantment  that  comes  from  dis- 
tance of  time,  and  would  look  like  some  fanciful  myth  did 
not  history  give  it  a  certainty  that  cannot  be  denied.  It 
is  the  passage  of  Catholicity  on  our  shores  four  hundred 
years  before  Columbus  gave  to  the  Old  World  the  lasting 
possession  of  America.  The  church  came  and  went  with 
the  Norsemen,  without,  however,  leaving  on  our  land  any 
durable  trace,  so  far  as  our  present  knowledge  goes.  But 
the  coming  and  going  are  recorded  in  Norse  literature  and 
Roman  archives. 

The  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  were  the  period  of 
greatest  activity  for  the  Northmen  of  Scandinavia.  On 
the  shores  of  England,  Ireland,  France,  Italy,  and  Greece 
their  viking  boats  poured  out  hordes  of  warriors  who  spread 
desolation  far  and  wide  and  planted  colonies  that  have  en- 
tered into  the  make-up  of  Europe.  Westward,  too,  they 
pushed  their  way.  The  islands  of  the  North  Atlantic,  the 
Orkneys,  Shetlands,  and  Faroes,  became  Norse  outposts. 
But  it  was  in  Iceland  that  grew  up  their  most  vigorous  and 
renowned  offshoot.  It  was  reached  by  them  in  784.  Very 
soon  there  was  settled  in  that  mid- Atlantic  island  a  popu- 
lation of  fifty  thousand  Norsemen,  who  set  up  a  republic 
bound  to  the  mother  country  by  a  very  slender  allegiance. 
A  rich  Icelandic  literature  sprang  up  before  England, 
France,  Italy,  and  Spain  had  come  into  possession  of  their 
present  languages.  The  historical  records  of  Iceland  espe- 
cially are  unequaled  by  anything  contemporaneous  else- 
where, and  hardly  surpassed  by  anything  done  in  modern 
times. 

These  are  our  authorities  for  the  history  of  the  Norse 
occupation  of  Greenland,  which  was  discovered  at  the  end 


4  THE   ROMAN   CATHOLICS. 

of  the  ninth  century,  colonized  at  the  end  of  the  tenth 
century,  and  Christianized  at  the  beginning  of  the  elev- 
enth century.  About  one  hundred  years  thereafter  a 
bishop  was  assigned  to  the  Greenland  church.  His  see 
was  at  Gardar.  From  the  first  bishop  appointed,  in  1 1 12, 
to  the  last  one  appointed  by  Innocent  VIII.  and  confirmed 
by  Alexander  VI.  in  1492,  the  year  of  the  discovery  by 
Columbus,  a  period  elapsed  of  three  hundred  and  eighty 
years  of  a  hierarchy — consequently  of  organized  church 
life — regular  and  continuous  down  to  the  year  1409;  fitful 
and  interrupted  from  1409  to  1492.  Between  the  two  ex- 
treme dates,  in  the  palmiest  period  of  Greenland  Chris- 
tianity, there  were  on  its  inhospitable  shores  one  bishop,  a 
cathedral,  fifteen  churches,  four  or  five  monasteries,  and  a 
Catholic  population  of  ten  thousand  souls.  This  informa- 
tion rests  on  historical  evidence  that  is  irresistible. 

Likewise  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  southwest  of 
Greenland  a  country  was  discovered,  and  for  hundreds  of 
years  was  visited  frequently,  and  inhabited  for  periods  of 
two  or  three  years  at  a  time  by  traders  and  missionaries 
from  Greenland  and  Iceland — a  country  known  in  Ice- 
landic and  other  annals  as  Vinland  the  Good.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  vindicate  the  authenticity  and  veracity  of  the 
sagas,  especially  those  contained  in  the  "  Hauksbok  "  and 
the  "  Flateyjarbok."  We  hold  it  as  absolutely  certain 
that  Vinland  was  on  the  American  mainland,  and  as  all  but 
absolutely  demonstrated  that  it  was  on  the  New  England 
coast.  We  believe  that  Boston  has  made  no  mistake  in 
raising  a  statue  to  Leif  Ericsson,  the  discoverer  of  Vinland. 

One  proof,  and  only  one,  is  wanting.  Greenland  is  still 
covered  with  the  ruins  of  churches,  of  monasteries,  and  of 
the  homes  of  the  Scandinavian  settlers.  But  in  Vinland, 
so  far,  no  trace  of  buildings  has  been  found.  The  archaeo- 
logical  proof  is  wanting.      The  old   mill  at  Newport,  the 


Introduction.  5 

Dighton  Rock  on  the  Taunton  River,  the  remains  of 
Norumbega  on  the  Charles  River,  are  not  allowed  by- 
serious  historians  to  be  vestiges  of  the  Norse  discoverers 
of  America. 

Now  the  truth  is,  the  narratives  of  the  sagas  do  not 
call  for  any  such  corroboration.  Nowhere  do  they  state 
that  the  Northmen  made  permanent  settlements  in  Vin- 
land,  but  only  temporary  visits  for  timber  and  peltries, 
or  missionary  voyages  to  evangelize  for  a  season  the 
natives.  Solid  buildings  were  not  necessary  for  such  so- 
journs; it  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  ruins  are  not  to  be 
found,  though  we  fancy  smaller  remains,  such  as  pottery, 
tools,  and  various  implements,  marking  their  passage,  may 
yet  be  unearthed.  And,  moreover,  the  Skraellings — such 
was  the  name  given  by  the  discoverers  to-  the  savages  of 
Vinland — hindered  the  permanent  settling  of  the  new- 
comers. Very  true,  centuries  later  a  handful  of  Europeans 
landed  on  the  very  same  shores  touched  by  the  Scandi- 
navians and  drove  the  natives  before  them  into  the  interior ; 
but  the  Europeans  had  firearms,  whereas  the  Scandinavians 
were  almost  matched  in  weapons  of  war  by  the  bow  and 
arrow  and  the  stone  hatchet  of  the  Indian.  We  need  not 
wonder  then  that  no  permanent  Scandinavian  settlements 
were  made,  and  it  is  useless  to  demand  that  we  produce 
vestiges  of  them. 

In  a  word,  Vinland  was  civilly  a  trading-post  and  eccle- 
siastically a  missionary  station  of  the  mother  colony  and 
church  of  Greenland.  We  must  therefore  expect  to  find 
in  ecclesiastical  history  only  incidental  allusions  to  Vinland 
as  an  out-station.  But  such  allusions,  scant  as  they  may 
be,  are  precious  to  the  historian,  and  tell  much  to  the 
imagination.  We  confess  at  once  that  we  have  in  the 
records  only  such  incidental  allusions  to  the  work  of  the 
church  in  Vinland. 


6  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 

The  first  Bishop  of  Greenland  was  Eric  Gnupson  or 
Upsi.  He  was  appointed  in  1112,  but  was  not  conse- 
crated until  1 1 20.  The  "  Annales  Regii  Islandorum," 
which  gives  the  history  of  Iceland  down  to  1307,  informs 
us  that  this  bishop  never  went  to  his  duties  in  Greenland, 
but  did  missionary  work  in  Vinland,  where  he  died,  proba- 
bly for  the  faith.  This  statement  hints  that  the  Green- 
land voyagers  had  entered  into  continuous  intercourse  with 
the  natives,  and  that  the  w^ork  of  evangelizing  them  was 
attempted.  Cranz  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  from  1 1 10 
to  the  time  of  Bishop  Upsi  (1120),  Scandinavian  colonists 
lived  in  Vinland,  and  that  they  had  become  merged  by 
intermarriage  in  the  surrounding  tribes. 

In  1246,  under  Bishop  Olaf,  the  seventh  incumbent  of 
Gardar,  the  holy  see  asked  the  Peter  pence  from  Green- 
land. And  from  this  time  forward  we  find  Greenland 
mentioned  by  name  and  Vinland  by  implication  only  in 
various  documents  regarding  the  Peter  pence  of  the  diocese 
of  Gardar,  as  Avell  as  in  the  accounts  of  the  collectors  con- 
tained in  the  financial  records  of  the  Vatican.  The  Arch- 
bishop of  Drontheim,  appointed  in  1276  to  make  the 
collection,  applied  to  Pope  John  XXI.  for  permission  to 
send  collectors  in  his  stead,  giving  as  reasons  the  distance 
and  the  length  of  time  that  he  would  have  to  be  absent 
from  his  see  in  Norway.  In  consequence  Nicholas  III.  in 
1279  granted  extraordinary  faculties  to  the  collectors  ap- 
pointed by  the  Archbishop  of  Drontheim. 

We  gather  from  a  bull  of  Martin  IV.  in  1282  that  the 
tithes  of  the  diocese  of  Gardar  were  paid  in  produce  of  the 
country — teeth  of  walrus,  hides,  and  furs ;  that  they  were 
shipped  to  Norway,  and  there  converted  by  sale  into  cur- 
rent money.  But  what  interests  us  most  is  that  in  the 
bull  of  1279,  dispensing  the  Archbishop  of  Drontheim  from 
a  personal  visit  to  Greenland,  and  delegating  his  appointees 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

thereto,  we  read  the  following  words  :  "  To  collect  the  tithes 
and  the  products  of  the  communes,  as  well  in  the  diocese 
of  Gardar  as  in  the  islands  and  neighboring  territories." 
From  this  we  conclude  that  lands  outside  Greenland  were 
known  and  were  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of 
Gardar,  and  were  inhabited  by  the  faithful,  or  at  least 
were  exploited  by  them.  In  this  passage  we  see  an  implicit 
reference  to  Vinland. 

What  products  gathered  in  these  various  collections,  or 
what  share  of  them,  came  from  Vinland  we  can  only  con- 
jecture. The  statements  in  the  financial  records  of  Rome 
(the  "  Liber  Censuum ")  give  but  the  totals  for  the 
diocese  of  Gardar,  and  only  name  the  products  as  walrus 
teeth,  hides,  and  furs.  Now  we  know  from  the  sagas  that 
furs  were  an  article  of  barter  between  the  Scandinavians 
and  the  natives  of  Vinland.  This  is  not  to  say  that  all  the 
furs  were  from  that  colony,  for  seals  were  abundant  in 
Greenland.  We  do  find  in  the  report  by  the  nuncios  of 
Sweden  and  Norway  of  the  collections  made  between 
1326  and  1330  one  article  that  could  have  come  only 
from  Vinland — "  a  cup  of  transatlantic  wood  valued  at 
ten  golden  florins  "  :  "  Units  cipJuis  dc  nitcc  iiltramarina, 
existimatiis  1 1  florenos  aiiriy  The  cup  may  have  been 
worked  in  Greenland,  but  the  wood  must  have  come 
from  Vinland,  for  two  reasons :  first,  there  was  no  wood 
in  Greenland ;  secondly,  there  was  wood  in  Vinland,  and 
wood  used  precisely  for  ornamental  and  domestic  pur- 
poses. The  sagas  tell  us  that  the  main  staple  of  commerce 
between  Vinland,  Norway,  and  Greenland  was  wood.  This 
was  what  made  the  voyages  to  Vinland  so  profitable, 
and  kept  the  crews  there  for  years  at  a  time  getting  out 
their  cargoes.  Moreover,  the  saga  of  Thorfinn  Karlsefne 
narrates  how  the  wood  of  Vinland  was  worked  to  domestic 
purposes,  and  how  it  was  valued  at  high  prices,  a  Bremen 


8  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 

merchant  having  paid  Karlsefne  a  large  sum  for  his  scale- 
pans,  or,  as  others  will  have  it,  for  the  bar  with  which  he 
closed  his  door. 

During  the  administration  of  Bishop  Alfus  (consecrated 
in  1376)  came  to  the  Catholic  inhabitants  of  Greenland 
the  first  notice  of  the  danger  that  was  to  exterminate 
them  a  few  years  later.  The  savages  they  had  met  in 
Vinland  in  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century — the 
Skraellings — made  a  raid  into  Greenland.  These  tribes 
are  supposed  to  have  been  the  descendants  of  the  Ameri- 
can glacial  man,  and  to  be  represented  now  by  the  Eski- 
mos of  Greenland.  They  were  no  doubt  driven  north- 
ward by  more  numerous  and  more  cultured  bands  of 
Indians  coming  from  the  south — the  present  American 
red  man,  to  whom,  in  the  course  of  time,  they  shall  have 
to  yield,  and  by  whom  they  shall  be  driven  to  seek  a  home 
in  northern  climes.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  early 
Norse  colonists  found  no  aborigines  in  Greenland. 

Meanwhile  the  intercourse  between  Greenland  and  Nor- 
way was  declining  and  becoming  more  and  more  infrequent. 
A  curious  entry  in  Icelandic  annals  (1386)  states:  "  A  ship 
came  from  Greenland  to  Norway  which  had  lain  in  the 
former  country  two  whole  years.  The  men  who  returned 
by  this  ship  brought  the  news  of  Bishop  Alf's  death  from 
Greenland,  which  had  taken  place  there  six  years  be- 
fore." According  to  this  entry  not  for  six  years  at  least 
had  there  been  any  communication  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. The  black  death  which  swept  over  Europe  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  may  have  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  this  neglect  of  its  colony  by  Norway. 
But  there  was  a  political  measure  that  had  much  more  to 
do  with  it.  As  discovery  and  first  colonization  are  always 
the  result  of  individual  enterprise,  so  also  the  prosperity  of 
the  colony  and  its  communication  with  the  mother  country, 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

and  especially  its  commerce,  depend  on  individual  activity 
and  love  of  gain.  In  1380-87  Queen  Margaret  of  Norway, 
on  whose  head  were  united  the  crowns  of  Denmark  and 
Norway,  made  the  trade  of  Greenland  a  royal  monopoly, 
to  be  carried  on  in  ships  belonging  to  or  licensed  by  the 
sovereign.  In  consequence  the  colony  gradually  fell  into 
oblivion,  and  being  thus  abandoned,  grew  too  weak  to  re- 
sist the  invading  Skraellings.  The  gradual  closing  in  of 
ice-parks  may  also  have  made  communication  more  and 
more  difficult. 

The  following  letter  of  Nicholas  V.  (1448),  commission- 
ing two  bishops  in  Iceland  to  see  to  the  spiritual  wants  of 
the  desolate  Greenlanders,  tells  the  sad  story : 

"  Whereas  my  beloved  children  who  are  natives  of  and 
dwell  in  the  great  island  of  Greenland,  which  is  said  to  lie 
on  the  extremest  boundaries  of  the  ocean,  northward  of 
the  kingdom  of  Norway  and  in  the  district  of  Thrond- 
jem,  have  by  their  pitiful  complaints  greatly  moved  our  ear 
and  awakened  our  sympathy  ;  and  whereas  the  inhabitants, 
for  almost  six  hundred  years;  have  held  the  Christian  faith, 
which  by  the  teaching  of  their  first  instructor,  King  Olaf, 
was  established  amongst  them,  firm  and  immovable  under 
the  Roman  see  and  the  apostolic  forms ;  and  whereas  in 
after  years,  from  the  constant  and  ardent  zeal  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  said  island,  many  sacred  buildings  and  a 
handsome  cathedral  have  been  erected  on  this  island,  in 
which  the  service  of  God  was  diligently  performed  until 
heathen  foreigners  from  the  neighboring  coast,  thirty  years 
.since,  came  with  a  fleet  against  them,  and  fell  with  fury 
upon  all  the  people  who  dwelt  there,  and  laid  waste  the 
land  itself  and  the  holy  buildings  with  fire  and  sword,  with- 
out leaving  upon  the  island  of  Greenland  other  than  the  few 
people  who  are  said  to  be  far  off,  and  which  they,  by  reason 
of  high  mountains,  could  not  reach,  and  took  off  the  much- 


lO  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 

to-be-commiserated  inhabitants  of  both  sexes,  particularly 
those  whom  they  looked  upon  as  convenient  and  strong 
enough  for  the  constant  burden  of  slavery,  and  took  home 
with  them  those  against  whom  they  could  best  direct  their 
barbarity.  Whereas  moreover  the  same  complaint  further 
saith  that  many,  in  the  course  of  time,  have  come  back  from 
said  captivity,  and  after  having  here  and  there  rebuilt  the 
devastated  places,  now  wish  to  have  the  worship  of  their 
God  again  established,  and  set  upon  the  former  footing ; 
and  since  they,  in  consequence  of  the  before-named  press- 
ing calamity,  are  wanting  the  necessary  means  themselves, 
to  support  their  priesthood  and  superiors,  and  therefore, 
during  all  that  period  of  thirty  years,  have  been  in  want 
of  the  consolations  of  the  bishops  and  the  services  of  the 
priests,  except  when  some  one,  through  desire  of  the  ser- 
vice of  God,  has  been  willing  to  undertake  tedious  and 
toilsome  journeys  to  the  people  whom  the  fury  of  the 
barbarians  has  spared ;  whereas  we  have  a  complete  knowl- 
edge of  all  these  things,  therefore,  we  now  charge  and 
direct  you,  brethren,  who,  we  are  informed,  are  the  nearest 
bishops  to  the  said  island,  that  ye,  after  first  conferring  with 
the  chief  bishop  of  the  diocese,  do  nominate  and  send  them 
a  fit  and  proper  man  as  bishop." 

However,  for  reasons  that  we  know  not,  this  decree  re- 
mained without  effect.  Fifty  years  later  the  Greenlanders 
renewed  their  petition  to  Innocent  VIII.  Their  situation 
was  pitiful.  Left  to  themselves  for  a  century  without 
bishop  and  priests,  they  had  fallen  into  ignorance  and 
complete  forgetfulness  of  the  religion  of  their  ancestors. 
The  only  memorial  of  it  that  remained  among  them  was  a 
corporal  on  which  the  last  priest  a  hundred  years  before 
had  consecrated  the  holy  eucharist.  Around  this  they 
congregated  occasionally  for  such  worship  as  tradition  had 
handed  down.     Moved  by  their  pitiful  petition,  Alexander 


INTRODUCTION.  1 1 

VI.,  successor  of  Innocent  VIII.,  confirmed  for  the  see  of 
Gardar  a  Benedictine  monk,  Mathias,  whom  Innocent  VIII., 
before  dying,  had  named  to  that  see.  The  document  from 
which  we  gather  these  details  is  a  letter  of  Alexander  VI. 
(1492-93)  to  the  Roman  congregations,  ordering  that  the 
necessary  briefs  and  papers  of  appointment  be  delivered 
to  the  appointed  bishop  without  the  ordinary  expenses  of 
chancery.  From  it  we  learn  also  that  one  of  the  causes 
of  the  interruption  of  communication  between  Europe  and 
Greenland  was  the  intense  cold  and  the  abundance  of  ice- 
packs. 

It  is  strange  that  we  have  this  last  historical  mention 
of  the  Catholic  colonization  of  Greenland  in  the  very  year 
that  Columbus  set  out  from  Spain  and  landed  on  the 
island  of  San  Salvador.  Thus  did  the  church  of  Green- 
land pass  out  of  sight  and  memory,  though  in  1520  the 
last  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Drontheim,  Eric  Walkendorf, 
sought  to  gather  information  of  the  long-unheard-of  see 
of  Gardar,  with  the  intention  of  renewing  communication 
with  the  lost  suffragan.  But  the  Reformation  swept  over 
Norway,  ended  the  hierarchy  there,  and  then  silence  and 
oblivion  fell  upon  Catholic  Greenland.  What  became  of 
the  descendants  of  Scandinavia  we  know  not.  But  they 
have  left  behind  them  ruins  of  churches  and  Catholic  in- 
scriptions on  stray  fragments  that  perpetual  snows  en- 
shroud. Thus  with  Greenland,  and,  indeed,  long  before 
the  disappearance  of  Greenland,  ended  the  Vinland  episode 
in  the  history  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  long  and  frequent 
intercourse  of  the  Scandinavians  with  the  natives  of  the 
American  mainland  during  centuries  of  commerce  and 
years  of  captivity,  that  the  missionary  expeditions  of 
bishops  and  priests  to  our  shores,  left  behind  some  vague 
knowledge   of  our  religion,   some  Catholic  practices  and 


12  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 

customs  which,  in  the  course  of  time,  became  more  or  less 
overgrown  with  superstitions.  This  may  explain,  to  some 
extent,  the  traces  of  Christianity  found  by  early  French 
explorers  and  missionaries  among  the  tribes  along  the  St. 
Lawrence.  It  might  also  explain  the  Christian  practices 
and  emblems  found  among  the  more  southern  tribes,  and 
spare  us  the  theories,  not  yet  historically  established,  that 
the  Apostle  St.  Thomas,  or  the  Irish  monks  St.  Columba 
and  St.  Brendan,  penetrated  as  far  as  Mexico  and  evan- 
gelized the  natives  of  the  south.  There  is  no  impossibility 
or  improbability  of  intercourse  between  all  the  tribes  of 
America  from  Mexico  and  even  Peru  to  the  colder  regions 
of  Canada.  There  are  in  different  sagas  and  in  the  relation 
of  the  Zeni  brothers  strong  indications  of  such  an  inter- 
course. The  legends  of  St.  Thomas  and  the  Irish  monks 
are  fascinating  but  conjectural.  They  are  a  field  in  which 
the  imagination  loves  to  roam,  but  in  which  the  historical 
sense  finds  small  satisfaction. 


BOOK    I.     THE    MISSION    PERIOD. 


Part  I.    The  Spanish  Missions. 


CHAPTER   I. 


SPAIN    IN    NORTH    AMERICA. 


The  results  of  the  discovery  of  Columbus  may  be 
studied  in  the  religious  or  in  the  secular  sphere.  In  either 
case,  they  were  profitable  and  glorious  for  the  crown  of 
Spain  and  the  Catholic  Church.  In  the  secular  sphere  the 
dominions  of  Charles  V.  were  widened  to  an  empire  such 
as  the  world  had  never  seen.  Love  of  glory  and  gain  fired 
the  hearts  of  the  scions  of  Spanish  nobility.  Mexico  and 
Peru,  Florida  and  New  Mexico,  were  startled  by  the  guns 
and  horses,  the  flashing  swords  and  moving  plumes  of  the 
irresistible  Castilian  invaders.  Gold  flowed  in  a  steady 
stream  into  the  coffers  of  Madrid,  at  what  cost  to  the  poor 
natives  Las  Casas  has  made  known  to  the  world.  The 
greed  and  rapacity  of  the  first  adventurers  must  be  held 
mainly  responsible  for  the  enslavement  and  the  cruel  treat- 
ment of  the  red  men,  who  had  appeared  to  Columbus, 
when  he  landed  on  San  Salvador,  so  guileless,  docile,  and 
inoffensive. 

Nevertheless  the  Spanish  government  cannot  be  held 
blameless.     To  be  sure,  it  was  constantly  giving  orders, 

13 


14  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  i. 

not  only  while  Isabella  reigned,  but  throughout  the  lives 
of  Ferdinand  and  Charles  V.,  against  overworking,  op- 
pressing, and  especially  enslaving  the  natives.  But  Amer- 
ica was  far  away,  and  the  crown  was  kept  in  ignorance  of 
the  excesses  to  which  the  white  man  went  in  his  conduct 
toward  his  red  brother,  until  Las  Casas  found  his  way  to 
the  royal  ear.  Yet,  after  making  all  allowances,  we  must 
say  that  the  government  that  approved  repartimiento  and 
encomienda  of  Indians  is  not  blameless;  it  should  have 
known,  if  it  knew  anything  of  human  nature,  that  such  a 
system,  dangerous  at  any  time  and  in  any  place,  must  in- 
evitably issue  in  the  enslavement  and  extermination  of  the 
Indian  in  the  presence  of  men  who  were  maddened  by 
thirst  for  gold  as  man  never  was  before.  It  is  to  the  glory 
of  the  church  that  Las  Casas  and  his  brother  Dominicans 
resisted  the  evil  passions  of  their  countrymen  with  vigor 
and  perseverance  until  the  accursed  system  was  broken 
down. 

However,  it  would  be  false  to  suppose  that  the  Indian 
has  been  exterminated  by  the  Spaniard.  Not  only  he  has 
not  been  exterminated,  but  he  is  to-day  the  South  Ameri- 
can fashioned  to  Christian  and  civil  life ;  for  undoubtedly 
the  population  of  South  America  is  mainly  of  Indian  blood. 
There  the  Indian  is  not  a  ward,  but  a  free  man,  a  member 
of  the  national  life  and  the  national  church ;  and  is  working 
his  way,  through  revolutions  and  disorders  of  various  sorts, 
to  a  higher  civilization ;  and  will  yet  take  a  front  rank,  if 
you  but  give  him  time,  in  the  grand  march  of  humanity  to 
the  goal  of  progress. 

In  the  glory  of  this  result  Spain  may  well  claim  a  share  ; 
yet  it  has  been  mainly  the  work  of  the  church.  Not  less 
than  the  state,  she  awoke  at  once  after  Columbus's  dis- 
covery to  the  work  she  had  to  do  in  the  new  field.  When 
all  others  abandoned  the  Genoese  sailor,  did  she  not  take 


THE    VESTIGES   OE  SPAIN.  15 

him  up,  shelter,  encourage,  push  him  at  court,  bless  him  as  he 
sailed  away  from  Palos,  and  more  than  queen  or  king  rejoice 
at  his  return?  She  saw  in  the  New  World  a  widening  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  Rome  lost  no  time  in  tak- 
ing advantage  of  the  wonderful  event.  A  pope  secured  to 
Spain  by  all  the  weight  of  his  authority  the  newly  found 
world.  Twelve  priests  commissioned  by  him  accompanied 
Columbus  on  his  second  voyage  and  began  the  conversion 
of  the  natives.  From  that  time  (1494)  until  15 12  the 
priests  serving  the  Spanish  colonists  and  the  missionaries 
working  among  the  natives  depended  for  jurisdiction  on 
the  see  of  Seville.  The  church  in  the  Spanish  colonies  be- 
came detached  from  Seville  when  the  see  of  San  Domingo 
was  erected  in  15  12,  and  assumed  control  of  religion  in  the 
Americas.  A  few  years  later  (1522)  a  see  was  erected  in 
Santiago  de  Cuba.  The  erection  of  Mexico  followed  in 
1530.  These  two  dioceses  are  the  centers  whence  sprang 
the  missions  in  Florida,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  Texas,  and 
California.  The  southeastern  portion  of  the  United  States 
was  ecclesiastically  dependent  on  Santiago  de  Cuba,  and  at 
a  later  date  on  Havana.  The  southwestern  portion  was 
ecclesiastically  dependent  on  Mexico,  and  at  a  later  date 
on  Guadalajara,  and  later  still  on  Durango. 

Of  the  nations  of  Europe  that  competed  for  supremacy 
in  the  New  World  none  has  left  a  more  interesting  record 
than  Spain.  She  failed ;  but  her  passage  through  North 
America  is  tinged  with  romance  and  borders  on  the  mar- 
velous. Spain  owned  at  one  time  the  territory  stretching 
from  the  Mississippi  westward  to  the  Pacific  and  north- 
ward to  the  present  State  of  Oregon,  and  also  the  territory 
stretching  eastward  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Atlantic 
coast,  and  northward  up  into  the  Carolinas.  How  much 
remains  to  mark  her  passage  ? 

Florida  preserves  no  traces  of  Spain  beyond  geographi- 


l6  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  i. 

cal  names.  In  Louisiana,  Spanish  laws,  or  their  influence, 
are  on  the  statute-books,  and  Spanish  blood  flows  in  the 
veins  of  many  of  the  older  families.  Texas  shows  less  of 
the  passage  of  the  Spaniard ;  a  few  laws,  mostly  obsolete, 
are  in  the  statute-books,  a  few  towns  retain  traits  of  old 
Spanish  life,  a  few  families  trace  their  lineage  to  the  earli- 
est colonists,  and  some  noble  ruins  of  mission  churches 
dot  the  land.  New  Mexico  is  the  most  Spanish  corner  in 
the  United  States  ;  the  language  of  Castile  is  spoken  there 
to  a  considerable  extent ;  the  general  appearance  of  many 
towns  tells  of  old  Spanish  life  ;  the  work  of  the  Spanish 
missionaries  is  still  visible,  not  only  in  the  churches  they 
built,  but  in  the  lives  of  the  Indians  they  converted ;  old 
grants,  laws  of  settlement,  and  municipal  life  among  the 
descendants  of  the  colonists  and  the  civilized  Indians  tell 
of  Spanish  domination  during  two  centuries.  In  Arizona 
only  geographical  names  and  a  few  ruined  churches  are 
witnesses  to  the  presence  in  past  time  of  the  proud  hidalgo. 
In  California  the  evidences  of  Spanish  occupation  are 
disappearing  rapidly  before  the  onward  march  of  Ameri- 
can civilization.  The  nomenclature  of  the  country,  the  few 
remaining  Spanish  families,  the  many  missions,  ruined  or 
repaired,  the  laws  relating  to  land,  the  numerous  archives, 
civil  and  religious,  are  the  silent  though  eloquent  reminders 
of  the  passage  of  Spain. 

It  now  becomes  my  task  to  review  briefly  the  history 
of  those  Spanish  missions.  I  must  speak  successively  of 
the  southeastern  mission  (Florida)  and  of  the  southwestern 
missions  (New  Mexico,  Arizona,  Texas,  and  California). 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    PRELIMINARY    EXPLORATIONS    IN    FLORIDA 

(1513-65). 

It  is  probable  that  Americus  Vespucius,  returning  home 
from  his  first  voyage  (1498),  sailed  along  the  eastern  coast 
of  Florida  as  far  north  as  the  Chesapeake.  However  this 
may  be,  a  map  still  extant,  known  as  the  Cantino  map,  bear- 
ing date  1502,  shows  north  of  Cuba  a  mainland  terminating 
in  a  peninsula  very  like  in  shape  to  Florida.  The  conclu- 
sion is  obvious  that  some  navigator  must  have  visited  and 
surveyed,  more  or  less  accurately,  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  the  eastern  shore  of  Florida  a  certain  distance 
northward. 

Among  the  Lucayan  Indians  of  the  Bahamas  there  was 
a  legend  of  a  "  fountain  of  youth  "  to  be  found  in  the  island 
of  Bimini,  to  the  north.  This  legend  struck  the  imagination 
of  a  young  hidalgo,  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon,  who  had  been 
a  companion  of  Columbus  in  his  second  voyage.  In  15  12 
he  obtained  a  royal  patent  empowering  him  to  discover  this 
wonderful  fountain.  Early  the  following  year  he  set  sail 
'with  three  caravels,  and  on  March  27th  he  made  land, 
which  he  coasted  as  high  as  30°  8',  about  the  position  of 
St.  Mary's  River,  Cumberland  Sound.  March  27th  that 
year  was  Easter  Sunday,  and  from  the  feast  he  named  the 
land  Pascua  Florida.  He  hurried  back  to  Spain  to  report 
his  discovery  and  receive  wider  powers  and  privileges  than 
the  royal  patent  of  1 5  1 2  had  given  him. 

17 


1 8  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  il. 

By  a  new  patent  he  was  empowered  "  to  settle  the  island 
Bimini  and  the  island  Florida."  It  was  also  provided  that 
the  natives  must  be  summoned  to  submit  to  the  Catholic 
faith  and  the  authority  of  the  king  of  Spain  ;  they  were  not 
to  be  attacked  or  captured  if  they  submitted.  It  was  only 
in  February,  1521,  that  he  was  able  to  realize  the  project. 
Letters  that  he  wrote  to  Charles  V.  and  to  the  Cardinal 
of  Tortosa,  afterward  Pope  Adrian  VI.,  before  starting, 
show  that  not  love  of  glory  merely,  or  greed  of  con- 
quest and  wealth,  actuated  him,  but  that  he  had  the 
higher  and  nobler  motive  of  bringing  the  boon  of  Chris- 
tianity to  lands  sunk  in  heathenism.  He  sailed  with  two 
vessels,  carrying  everything  needed  for  a  permanent  settle- 
ment, and  was  accompanied  by  secular  priests  to  min- 
ister to  the  colonists,  and  religious — of  the  order  of  St. 
Dominic,  most  likely — to  evangelize  the  natives.  The 
precise  place  or  time  of  his  landing  we  know  not.  Whether 
the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass  was  offered  up,  or  any  of 
the  ministrations  of  religion  were  performed  on  the  soil  of 
Florida  in  this  expedition,  we  can  only  conjecture.  What 
is  certain  is  that  the  natives  opposed  their  settling,  fiercely 
attacked  them  while  they  were  engaged  in  putting  up 
temporary  homes  for  shelter,  and  that  Ponce  de  Leon  was 
dangerously  wounded  by  an  arrow.  He  gave  up  the  hope 
of  making  good  his  footing  in  the  face  of  the  warlike  dis- 
position of  the  Indians,  and  sailed  back  to  Cuba,  to  die 
almost  immediately  of  his  wound. 

It  was  proved  very  early  that  Florida  was  not  an  island, 
as  it  was  called  in  the  cedula  granted  to  Ponce  de  Leon 
in  15  12.  In  1 5  19  Alvarez  de  Pineda  coasted  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  as  far  as  Tampico  in  Mexico, 
meeting  on  his  way  the  mouth  of  a  vast  river  he  named 
Rio  de  Santo  Espiritu — our  Mississippi — on  whose  waters 
he  spent  six  weeks  trading  with  the  natives.     Likewise  e?c- 


AYLLON'S  EXPEDITION.  1 9 

plorations  along  the  western  coast  of  Florida  showed  that 
it  was  the  southeastern  spur  of  a  continent  stretching  north- 
ward. At  this  time,  too,  the  expedition  of  Magellan's  crew 
around  the  world  by  way  of  the  straits  that  now  bear  his 
name  opened  the  eyes  of  Europe  to  the  fact  that  west  of 
the  New  World  there  lay  an  immense  ocean  between  it  and 
Asia.  Now,  as  the  old  notion  still  possessed  the  mind  of 
Europe  that  the  main  purpose  of  the  western  voyages  was 
to  find  a  route  to  the  spices  and  wealth  of  the  Asiatic  re- 
gions, and  as  the  Straits  of  Magellan  were  a  roundabout 
way,  inconvenient  because  of  distance  and  stormy  seas,  it 
became  a  matter  of  the  first  importance  to  discover  a  water- 
way through  the  American  mainland  to  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
and  thence  to  Asia,  in  the  latitude  of  Spain  and  Europe. 
Then  began  that  pathetic  and  thrilling  story  of  a  persistent 
search  for  a  northwest  passage  that  has  evolved  in  our 
days  into  a  search  for  the  open  Arctic  Sea.  The  first  who 
tried  our  coasts  for  the  western  passage  wasAyllon.  The 
Chesapeake,  he  thought,  might  be  the  sought-for  break 
through  the  barrier  of  land. 

The  year  before  Ponce  de  Leon  had  started  on  his  un- 
fortunate attempt  of  colonization,  Vasquez  de  Ayllon,  one 
of  the  judges  of  San  Domingo,  a  man  of  wealth  and  am- 
bition, had  dispatched  a  caravel  to  explore  the  coast  north 
of  the  limits  assigned  by  patent  to  Ponce  de  Leon.  The 
caravel  met  in  30°  30'  a  river,  which  was  called  from  the 
feast  of  the  day  (June  24th)  the  St.  John's  River,  a  name  it 
retains  to  this  day.  After  further  cruising,  the  caravel  re- 
turned to  report  to  Ayllon.  He  proceeded  immediately  to 
Spain  to  obtain  the  royal  permission  to  settle  the  discov- 
ered territory.  This  was  granted  to  him  in  June,  1523.  It 
is  to  be  remarked  that  he  was  ordered  by  the  terms  of  the 
cedula  (the  Spanish  name  for  the  grant)  to  run  up  the  coast 
eight  hundred  leagues;  this  order  shows  that  Spain,  by 


20  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chai'.  ii. 

right  of  the  discovery  of  Columbus  and  the  Partition  Bull 
of  Alexander  VI.,  claimed  as  her  own  all  the  mainland 
north  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  called  it  Florida — a  claim 
that  brought  her,  a  few  years  later,  into  conflict  with  France, 
and,  still  later,  with  England,  both  of  whom  set  up  counter- 
claims based  on  discoveries  in  North  America  prior  to 
any  explorations  and  settlements  of  Spain  above  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico. 

But  what  interests  us  most  are  the  religious  provisions 
of  the  cedula.  Ayllon  was  bidden  "  to  attract  the  natives 
to  receive  preachers  who  would  inform  and  instruct  them 
in  the  affairs  of  our  holy  Catholic  faith,  that  they  might  be- 
come Christians."  The  document  goes  on  to  state :  "  And 
whereas  our  principal  intent  in  the  discovery  of  new  lands 
is  that  the  inhabitants  and  natives  thereof  who  are  with- 
out the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  faith  may  be  brought  to 
understand  the  truths  of  our  holy  Catholic  faith,  and  that 
they  may  come  to  the  knowledge  thereof  and  become 
Christians  and  be  saved,  and  this  is  the  chief  motive  you 
are  to  bear  and  hold  in  this  affair,  and  to  this  end  it  is 
proper  that  religious  persons  should  accompany  you,  by 
these  presents  I  empower  you  to  carry  to  the  said  land 
the  religious  whom  you  may  judge  necessary,  and  the 
vestments  and  the  other  things  needful  for  the  observance 
of  divine  worship ;  and  I  command  that  whatever  you  shall 
thus  expend  in  transporting  the  said  religious,  as  well  as 
in  maintaining  them  and  giving  them  what  is  needful,  and 
for  the  vestments  and  other  articles  required  for  the  divine 
w^orship,  shall  be  paid  entirely  from  the  rents  and  profits 
which  in  any  manner  shall  belong  to  us  in  the  said  land." 
These  noble  and  emphatic  words  of  the  great  emperor, 
Charles  V.,  his  disinterested  generosity  in  providing  for  re- 
ligion means  and  ways  out  of  the  crown's  revenues,  prove 
that  Spain,  while  extending  her  empire  throughout  the 


THE  ABOLITIONIST  MONTESINOS.  21 

New  World,  was  actuated  by  regard  for  Christianity,  and 
by  the  desire  to  spread  it,  no  less,  if  not  more,  than  by 
lust  of  conquest  and  the  desire  to  garner  wealth. 

In  the  month  of  June,  1526,  Ayllon  set  out  with  three 
large  vessels  carrying  six  hundred  persons  and  all  the 
requisites  for  a  permanent  colony.  With  him  went  two 
Dominican  fathers  and  a  lay  brother.  One  of  the  two 
fathers,  Antonio  Montesinos,  was  a  man  who  deserves  to 
stand  in  history  by  the  side  of  Las  Casas,  for  he  preceded 
Las  Casas  in  protest  against  the  enslavement  of  the  Indians. 
It  was  in  San  Domingo,  on  a  Sunday,  in  15 11,  that  he 
preached  a  sermon  "  very  piercing  and  terrible,"  telling  his 
hearers  that  they  were  living  in  mortal  sin,  and  that  their 
greed  and  cruelty  were  such  that  for  any  chance  they  had 
of  going  to  heaven  they  might  as  well  be  Moors  or  Turks. 
The  infuriated  Spaniards  demanded  an  apology  and  re- 
tractation from  the  rash  preacher.  On  the  next  Sunday 
the  sermon  was  still  more  pointed,  for  he  declared  that 
the  monks  of  his  order  would  refuse  the  sacraments  to  any 
man  who  should  maltreat  Indians  or  engage  in  the  slave- 
trade.  Brave  and  undaunted  abolition  preachers  are  not 
the  monopoly  of  our  country  and  century.  We  feel  like 
thanking  God  that  the  feet  of  Antonio  Montesinos,  the  first 
of  American  abolitionists,  trod  the  soil  desecrated  by  the 
slavery  of  the  black  man  during  two  hundred  years,  purified 
by  the  atoning  blood  of  the  slave-holder,  redeemed  and 
glorified  by  hecatombs  of  liberty's  soldiers. 

Ayllon  and  his  colony  reached  the  Chesapeake,  and 
formed  a  settlement  they  named  San  Miguel,  not  far 
from  the  spot  where  almost  a  century  later  the  English 
founded  Jamestown  in  Virginia.  A  temporary  chapel 
was  erected,  and  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass  was  cele- 
brated as  long  as  the  settlement  lasted.  It  did  not  last 
long.      Ayllon  died  in  the  month  of  October,   1526.     A 


22  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  il. 

severe  winter  set  in,  with  disease  in  its  train.  The  settlers 
quarreled  among  themselves ;  the  Indians  attacked  them. 
When  spring  returned,  the  colonists,  disgusted  and  despair- 
ing, reembarked  on  the  two  vessels  anchored  in  the  river. 
One  foundered,  the  other  made  its  way  to  Hispaniola.  Of 
the  six  hundred  that  had  started  out  the  year  before  in  high 
hopes,  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  returned. 

Many  expeditions  without  practical  results  were  yet  to 
be  undertaken  before  Spain  gained  firm  possession  of 
Florida.  Among  these  were  the  attempts  of  Pamfilo  de 
Narvaez  in  1527,  and  of  Hernando  de  Soto  in  1538.  They 
concern  our  history  only  because  missionary  priests  went 
with  them.  Pamfilo  de  Narvaez  had  in  his  five  ships  six 
hundred  persons,  among  them  some  secular  priests  and 
five  Franciscans,  whose  superior  was  Juan  Xuarez.  The 
fleet  was  driven  by  storm  into  a  bay  of  the  Florida  coast, 
named  by  him  Bahia  de  la  Cruz,  and  supposed  to  be 
Appalachee  Bay.  Narvaez  disembarked,  and  ordered  the 
ships  to  sail  along  the  coast  and  stand  ready  to  meet  him, 
while  he  proceeded  on  shore.  Ignorance  of  the  country  or 
mismanagement  separated  the  land  and  water  forces.  The 
ships  failed  to  make  the  junction.  Want  of  provisions  and 
attacks  of  Indians  forced  the  unfortunate  Spaniards  to  trust 
themselves  to  some  small  boats  they  had  hurriedly  con- 
structed. No  trace  of  them  was  ever  found  afterward. 
Out  of  the  whole  expedition  only  four  men  escaped — 
Cabeza  de  Vaca,  the  treasurer,  Dorantes,  Castillo,  and  a 
negro  named  Stephen.  They  wandered  among  the  Indians 
of  the  Southwest,  and  ten  years  after  the  start  of  the  expe- 
dition reached  Petatlan,  in  the  province  of  Sinaloa,  Mexico. 
This  journey  of  Cabeza  de  Vaca,  and  the  report  he  made 
of  it,  entered  into  the  romance  of  the  day,  and  led  to  im- 
portant results,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  treat  of 
the  church  in  New  Mexico. 


DE   SOTO'S  EXPEDITION.  2% 

In  April,  1538,  from  San  Lucar,  Spain,  six  hundred  as 
well-born  and  brave  men  as  ever  marched  beneath  the 
banner  of  Castile  sailed  for  Florida  under  command  of 
Hernando  de  Soto.  Among  them  were  eight  secular 
priests  and  four  religious ;  their  names  have  not  been  pre- 
served. The  royal  cedula  issued  to  De  Soto  specifically 
mentioned  that  he  was  to  carry  ecclesiastics  and  religious 
on  his  expedition,  at  his  own  cost,  to  instruct  the  natives 
in  Christianity.  We  can  safely  conjecture  that  the  holy 
sacrifice  of  the  mass  was  offered  on  American  soil  during 
the  wanderings  of  De  Soto  until  the  battle  of  the  Mauvila, 
a  bloody  conflict  on  the  Alabama  River  in  which  hundreds 
of  Indians  fell.  During  that  battle  the  stores  of  the  ex- 
pedition were  fired  and  all  things  requisite  for  the  holy 
sacrifice  were  consumed.  Most  of  the  priests  perished  in 
the  long,  weary  marches  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  up  to 
Virginia  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi,  in  whose 
turbid  waters  the  ill-fated  leader  was  buried.  De  Soto  was 
a  conqueror  of  the  school  of  Pizarro,  under  whom  he  had 
served ;  ambitious  of  glory,  greedy  for  gold,  harsh  to  his 
men,  cruel  to  the  natives.  He  made  no  permanent  con- 
quest, though  no  leader  of  former  Floridian  expeditions 
visited  such  a  vast  extent  of  territory  ;  nor  can  he  be  called 
the  discoverer  of  the  Mississippi,  if  to  discover  is  to  be 
the  first  to  find  and  see  ;  for  Alvarez  de  Pineda  (1520)  had 
noticed  the  mouth  of  the  great  river,  had  ascended  it  some 
distance,  and  named  it  the  River  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And 
yet  there  is  a  certain  glamour  about  this  expedition  that 
makes  it  one  of  the  most  thrilling  in  history,  and  the  name 
of  De  Soto  one  of  the  most  romantic  in  the  record  of  ex- 
plorers. 

Five  attempts  in  which  the  military  and  religious  powers 
of  Spain  were  combined  for  the  same  end  had  been  made 
to  effect  a  foothold   in   Florida,  and   had  failed.      It  was 


24  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  it. 

evident  that  the  Indians  of  the  mainland  were  not  the 
childlike  and  mild  race  that  Columbus  had  met  in  the 
islands  of  the  semitropical  gulf.  Moreover,  the  expedi- 
tions had  proved  that  no  golden  realms,  no  semibarbaric 
civilization,  existed  in  the  north  such  as  Cortez  had  found 
in  Mexico  and  Pizarro  in  Peru.  Was  it  worth  while 
sacrificing  more  lives  for  barren  regions  where  roamed 
half-naked  savages  ?  Yet  it  was  becoming  more  and 
more  evident  that  the  holding  of  Florida  was  of  the  first 
importance  to  Spain — was  a  political  and  commercial 
necessity. 

The  two  great  nations  of  Europe — England  and  France 
— were  casting  coveting  glances  toward  the  Western  hemi- 
sphere, and  only  absorbing  interests  and  cares  at  home 
delayed  them  from  bringing  about  the  partition  of  America. 
Already  England  at  a  very  early  day  had  sent  her  Cabots 
(1497-98)  and  John  Rut  (1527);  France  her  Denis  of 
Honfleur  (1506),  Aubert  of  Dieppe  (1508),  Baron  de  Lery 
(1518),  Verrazano  (1523),  and  Jacques  Cartier  (1534).  It 
was  imperatively  necessary  that  Spain  should  not  allow 
these  two  rivals  to  come  too  near  her  splendid  possessions 
on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  that  she  should  hold  for  their 
protection  the  southern  half  of  the  northern  mainland. 
This  was  the  political  necessity.  The  reefs  of  Florida 
were,  of  all  the  Gulf  region,  the  most  dangerous  to  cara- 
vels flying  before  the  strong  winds  of  the  Atlantic. 
Many  a  ship  bringing  to  the  colonies  men  and  stores, 
many  a  one  sailing  back  to  Spain  with  rich  freights  of  the 
precious  metals,  was  wrecked  and  shattered  on  the  treach- 
erous keys,  and  became  the  prey  of  the  waves  or  the 
Indians.  It  was  imperatively  necessary  to  have  there  life- 
stations,  so  to  speak — communities  who  could  bring  aid 
to  crafts  in  distress,  or  at  least  secure  the  salvage.  This 
was  the  commercial  necessity.      But  the  vexing  question 


APOSTOLIC  EVANGELIZING.  2$ 

was,  how  to  make  good  a  foothold  on  a  coast  swept  by 
such  wild  savages,  whose  descendants  even  in  this  century 
held  at  bay  the  army  of  the  United  States. 

While  Las  Casas,  in  1536,  was  resting  amid  his  labors 
for  the  freedom  of  the  Indians  in  a  Dominican  monastery 
in  Guatemala,  he  wrote  a  work  ("  De  Unico  Vocationis 
Modo  ")  on  the  only  true  mode  of  conversion,  maintaining 
that  to  make  war  on  heathen  or  infidels,  because  they  were 
heathen  or  infidels,  was  wrong,  and  that  the  only  lawful 
method  of  bringing  men  to  Christ  was  that  of  reason  and 
persuasion.  He  was  preaching  the  ways  of  peace  to  an 
audience  that  believed  in  the  ways  of  conquest,  violence, 
and  force.  The  audience  sneeringly  challenged  him  to 
put  his  beautiful  theory  to  practice  in  some  wild  Indian 
tribe.  He  took  them  at  their  word,  and  chose  for  his  ex- 
periment the  wildest  tribe  known,  living  in  an  inaccessible 
country,  desperate  fighters,  whom  the  Spaniards  had  tried 
three  times  to  reduce,  and  had  failed.  The  country  was 
called  the  "  Land  of  War,"  and  was  situated  north  of 
Guatemala.  Las  Casas  exacted  from  the  authorities  that, 
if  he  succeeded  in  bringing  the  natives  of  that  land  to 
Christianity  and  to  the  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
Spanish  monarch,  the  province  should  be  placed  under  the 
immediate  protection  of  the  crown  and  the  system  of  repar- 
timiento  and  encomienda  should  never  be  allowed  to  take 
root  there.      The  promise  was  made. 

Some  Dominican  monks,  companions  of  Las  Casas  in  the 
monastery,  had  been  mastering  the  native  dialects  of  the 
country  while  he  was  writing  the  book  that  called  forth 
this  challenge.  They  now  set  to  work  putting  the  Chris- 
tian truths  to  meter,  the  meter  to  music  ;  and  found  some 
Indian  traders  who  consented  to  carry  with  their  wares 
the  hymns  and  music  into  the  dreaded  land.  The  warlike 
tribe  was  interested,  and  invited  the  monks  themselves  to 


26  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ii. 

come.  Father  Luis  Cancer  de  Barbastro  was  the  first  to 
go ;  Las  Casas  and  another  monk  soon  followed.  Before 
a  year  the  tribe  was  converted,  and  the  cacique  came 
to  the  governor  of  Guatemala — the  stern  Alvarado — to 
acknowledge  before  him  in  person  the  supremacy  of  Spain. 
It  is  but  justice  to  add  that  the  promise  made  to  Las  Casas 
by  the  governor  was  kept  and  ratified  by  Charles  V.  The 
"Land  of  War"  was  named  the  "  Land  of  Peace";  the 
name  Vera  Paz,  which  the  province  still  retains  on  our 
maps,  is  a  lasting  testimony  to  the  noblest  conquest  ever 
made  by  Spaniards  in  the  New  World. 

Now,  ten  years  later,  the  same  Father  Luis  Cancer  de 
Barbastro  resolved  to  repeat  the  conquest  on  the  northern 
mainland.  Ponce  de  Leon,  Ayllon,  Narvaez,  and  De  Soto 
had  gone  forth  in  the  panoply  of  war,  and  had  fallen  back 
before  warlike  savages.  He  would  go  with  no  companions 
but  his  brother  monks,  with  no  weapon  but  the  cross  and 
the  rosary  ;  and  what  he  had  accomplished  in  the  "  Land  of 
War  "  he  would  do  ip  Florida,  drenched  without  avail  with 
the  blood  of  many  of  the  best  missionaries  and  soldiers  of 
Spain.  To  Spain  he  went  (1547)  to  lay  his  project  before 
the  court.  It  was  approved,  and  he  received  a  patent  to 
carry  it  out.  The  preceding  expeditions  had  kidnapped 
many  natives  from  Florida  who  were  scattered  through- 
out the  various  Spanish  colonies.  Father  Luis  knew  that 
they  could  be  of  service  to  him  as  interpreters,  and  that 
their  return  in  his  company  would  be  the  strongest  proof 
to  the  Floridians  of  the  peaceful  and  beneficent  character 
of  his  mission.  With  the  patent  he  carried  back  a  royal 
command  that  all  Floridian  natives,  wherever  found  in  the 
colonies,  should  be  given  up  to  him.  Unfortunately  the 
command  was  not  obeyed,  and  he  sailed  for  Florida  (1549) 
without  this  powerful  support,  trusting  in  God  to  make  a 
way  for  him. 


THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  LUIS   CANCER.  27 

With  him  went  a  band  of  his  Dominican  brethren.  His- 
tory has  preserved  the  names  of  some  of  them  :  Gregory 
de  Beteta,  Diego  de  Tolosa,  Juan  Garcia.  On  Ascension 
day  they  anchored  not  far  from  Tampa  Bay,  on  the  west- 
ern shore.  Father  Luis  had  prudence  as  well  as  zeal. 
His  plan  was  to  cruise  until  he  found  a  friendly  tribe  that 
would  allow  him  to  land.  But  the  captain  of  the  ship  had 
no  such  patient  design,  and  gave  him  the  choice  to  land 
where  the  ship  lay  or  at  once  sail  back.  The  companions 
of  the  heroic  Dominican  were  for  abandoning  the  enter- 
prise under  the  circumstances,  but  he  resolved  to  go  on ; 
he  had  neglected  no  means  of  ordinary  prudence,  he  was 
not  responsible  for  the  obstinacy  of  the  captain,  he  would 
trust  in  God.  Some  Indians  were  in  sight.  A  small 
boat  carried  Father  Diego  de  Tolosa  and  three  lay  com- 
panions to  the  shore,  and  they  followed  the  natives  beyond 
a  thicket.  A  few  hours  later  a  Spaniard  who  had  been 
captured  some  years  before  and  was  a  prisoner  among 
the  Indians  reached  the  ship  at  anchor  in  the  bay,  and 
gave  information  that  the  father  and  his  companions  had 
been  murdered.  But  just  then  one  of  those  companions, 
a  Floridian  Christian  woman  whom  Father  Luis  had  found 
in  Mexico  and  had  taken  as  interpreter  of  the  expedi- 
tion, came  to  the  water's  edge  and  assured  him  that  they 
were  alive.  Uncertain,  anxious  to  know  the  truth,  to 
save  his  brethren  or  with  them  die  the  martyr's  death, 
Father  Luis,  in  spite  of  remonstrances  from  his  com- 
panions aboard,  entered  a  small  boat,  and  as  the  terror- 
stricken  sailors  refused  to  touch  land,  leaped  into  the  water 
and  waded  ashore.  No  sooner  had  he  reached  the  dry 
beach  and  knelt  in  prayer  than  he  was  surrounded  by  the 
Indians  in  wait  and  butchered  in  view  of  the  Spaniards. 
Thus  died  on  the  soil  of  the  United  States,  truly  a  martyr 
to  a  grand  cause  and  a  noble  idea,  the  fellow-crusader  of 


28  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  il. 

Las  Casas,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  Spain  has  sent 
to  the  New  World. 

The  failure  of  this  peaceful  expedition  was  enough  to 
discourage  any  further  efforts.  Yet  in  1555  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Mexico,  and  the  Bishop  of  Santiago  de  Cuba,  who 
had  jurisdiction  over  Florida,  urged  upon  the  court  of 
Spain  the  importance  and  necessity  of  colonizing  that  ter- 
ritory. The  political  and  commercial  reasons  for  so  doing 
were  growing  stronger  year  by  year.  It  was  decided 
to  make  another  effort;  and  while  the  humanitarian  policy 
of  Luis  Cancer  de  Barbastro  was  not  set  aside  as  far  as 
the  treatment  of  the  Indians  was  concerned,  it  was  felt  that 
nothing  but  a  military  occupation  of  the  dreaded  coast 
would  answer  the  national  purposes.  Fifteen  hundred 
soldiers,  many  settlers,  with  all  things  requisite  for  the 
colonization  and  cultivation  of  the  land,  gathered  in 
thirteen  vessels,  were  confided  to  the  command  of  Tristan 
de  Luna.  Four  Dominican  fathers,  with  a  lay  brother 
under  a  provincial  vicar,  Peter  de  Feria,  accompanied  the 
expedition.  They  reached  Santa  Rosa  Bay  August  i, 
1559-  A  partial  disembarkment  was  made  to  explore  the 
country  round  about  before  making  a  permanent  settle- 
ment. On  September  19th  a  cyclone  struck  the  fleet, 
destroying  eight  vessels,  and  driving  the  others  to  sea. 
Many  of  the  crew  and  passengers  were  lost  and  the  stores 
destroyed.  Those  that  escaped  remained  on  land  for  two 
years.  Temporary  houses  and  a  chapel  were  erected,  and 
provisions  came  to  them  from  Mexico.  But  discourage- 
ment and  mutiny  set  in ;  the  inexcusable  severity  of  the 
unfortunate  commander,  Tristan  de  Luna,  exasperated  his 
followers.  In  this  sad  condition  they  were  found  by  Villa- 
fane  (1561),  who  was  on  his  way  to  north  Florida.  This 
arrival  broke  up  the  settlement.  Some  went  back  with 
De  Luna  to  Havana;  the  larger  number  took  passage  with 


INTRUSION  OF  FRANCE.  29 

Villafane,  who  sailed  up  to  Santa  Elena,  Port  Royal  Sound, 
doubled  Cape  Hatteras,  reached  the  Chesapeake,  but  re- 
turned without  making  any  settlement. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  same  year  Philip  II.,  king  of 
Spain,  announced  that  he  would  allow  no  further  attempts 
to  colonize  Florida,  which  had  already  cost  too  much 
money  and  blood.  The  only  imperative  reason  for  occupy- 
ing Florida  would  be  to  keep  P^rance  from  getting  a  foot- 
hold there,  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  danger  of  that. 
But  in  this  presumption  Philip  was  deceived.  Just  at  the 
time  that  Villafane  was  sailing  back  to  Havana  with  the 
remnants  of  De  Luna's  splendid  expedition,  John  Ribault, 
a  Huguenot  sent  by  Coligny,  prime  minister  of  P' ranee  and 
the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Huguenot  faction,  was  found- 
ing a  Huguenot  colony  in  Port  Royal  Sound,  and  named 
the  fort  erected  there  Charlesfort,  in  honor  of  the  king  of 
France.  This  settlement  proved  a  failure,  it  is  true,  and 
was  soon  abandoned;  but  in  1564  Laudonnicre,  another 
Huguenot,  entered  the  St.  John's  River,  took  possession 
in  the  name  of  France,  and  built  a  fort  which  he  named 
Fort  Caroline,  in  honor  of  the  king.  And  now  France — 
and  not  only  P" ranee,  but  Protestantism — was  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  territory  claimed  by  Spain  and  often  explored 
by  her  since  the  days  of  Columbus,  and  dearly  purchased 
by  her  wrecked  gold  and  the  bleaching  bones  of  her  soldiers 
and  missionaries.  It  behooved  Spain  to  make  a  supreme 
effort,  or  see  her  supremacy  in  the  New  World  threatened 
by  a  political  and  religious  foe.  The  effort  was  made,  and 
succeeded  in  assuring  the  possession  of  Florida  to  Spain 
for  over  two  centuries. 

At  that  time  the  admiral  of  the  Spanish  fleet — the  same 
who  later  led  the  Armada  against  England — was  Pedro 
Menendez  de  Aviles.  To  him  was  intrusted  the  task 
of  driving  off  the  French  and  planting  in  Florida  a  per- 


30  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ii. 

manent  Spanish  colony.  A  royal  grant  was  issued  to  him 
March,  1565,  with  full  powers  to  occupy  and  settle  colonies 
in  Florida.  Among  other  conditions  he  was  obligated  to 
bring  with  him  and  maintain  at  his  expense  twelve  relig- 
ious, and  four  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  The  news 
of  the  occupation  by  the  French  Huguenots  at  the  mouth 
of  the  St.  John's  River,  and  the  further  announcement 
that  reinforcements  were  about  to  be  sent  to  that  settle- 
ment, hastened  the  departure  of  Menendez.  Without 
waiting  for  the  whole  fleet,  part  of  which  was  to  follow 
when  ready,  he  set  sail  from  Cadiz  June,  1565,  with  nine- 
teen vessels  carrying  over  fifteen  hundred  persons.  On  the 
28th  of  August  he  made  the  Florida  coast  in  a  harbor  that 
he  named  St.  Augustine,  from  the  saint  of  the  day.  Ten 
days  later  he  crept  up  the  coast  to  Fort  Caroline  and  found 
there  the  French  fleet  just  arrived  under  command  of  John 
Ribault.  Menendez  then  and  there  challenged  the  intruders 
to  a  naval  engagement,  but  the  challenge  was  not  accepted  ; 
the  Frenchmen,  cutting  their  cables,  slipped  past  the  enemy 
into  the  open  sea,  and  outsailed  the  Spaniards,  who  after 
a  short  chase  returned  to  St.  Augustine. 

Thinking  himself  safe  from  further  attack,  Menendez 
proceeded  to  debark  his  men  and  stores.  A  hurried  fort 
was  constructed,  and  the  foundations  of  the  oldest  city  of 
the  United  States  were  laid.  The  solemn  taking  pos- 
session— the  dedication,  so  to  speak,  of  the  town — was 
performed  on  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  of  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin (September  8,  1565),  with  due  religious  ceremonies. 
Menendez  was  mistaken  if  he  thought  he  was  safe  from 
Ribault.  The  French  ships  soon  appeared  before  the 
harbor,  and  it  might  have  gone  hard  with  the  new  town 
and  its  inhabitants  if  a  hurricane,  followed  by  a  violent 
rainstorm  that  lasted  some  days,  had  not  arisen  to  scatter 
the  French  fleet  and  furnish  cover  to  one  of  the  most  dar- 


AN  INHUMAN  DEED.  3  I 

ing  feats  that  Spanish  conqueror  ever  performed  in  the 
New  World.  Leaving  wind  and  rain  to  wreak  their 
fury  on  the  vessels  of  the  rash  Frenchmen,  the  Spanish 
commander,  with  five  hundred  men,  pushed  through  the 
rain,  the  everglades,  and  the  swamps  by  day  and  night  to 
the  French  fort  on  the  St.  John's  River,  found  it  unsen- 
tineled — for  what  foe  could  be  abroad  in  such  weather? — 
stormed  it,  and  put  to  the  sword  one  hundred  and  forty- 
one  inmates — men,  women,  and  children.  Only  a  few  es- 
caped through  the  woods  and  made  their  way  to  a  small 
craft  at  anchor  in  the  offing,  and  thence  to  France  to  tell 
the  news.  It  was  St.  Matthew's  day.  Menendez  re- 
christened  the  fort  San  Mateo,  left  in  it  a  garrison  of  three 
hundred  men,  and  returned  with  the  rest  of  his  force  to 
St.  Augustine.  Father  Mendoza,  the  parish  priest  of  the 
new  city,  came  forth  in  surplice,  crucifix  in  hand,  to  meet 
the  hero  of  the  massacre.  He,  kneeling  with  his  men, 
kissed  the  cross  ;  then,  arising,  they  entered  the  town  amid 
the  chant  of  the  Te  Deum. 

Some  days  after  Menendez  was  advised  that  a  number 
of  Frenchmen,  evidently  the  remnants  of  the  wrecked 
fleet  of  Ribault,  Vv^ere  stranded  on  the  outer  sand  island  of 
Matanzas  Inlet.  They  were  one  hundred  and  forty,  only 
a  portion  of  the  crew  that  had  escaped  from  the  foundered 
ships.  They  begged  either  means  of  going  back  to  France 
or  permission  to  make  their  way  overland  to  Fort  Caroline. 
Menendez  refused  the  first,  and  as  to  the  second,  explained 
how  there  was  no  longer  a  Fort  Caroline.  He  demanded 
an  unconditional  surrender,  to  which  the  wretches,  seeing 
no  way  out  of  their  present  condition,  consented.  No 
sooner  had  they  been  disarmed  and  ferried  over  to  the 
mainland  in  batches  of  ten,  than  they  were  put  to  the 
SM^ord,  none  being  spared  but  a  few  Catholics  among  them. 
A  few  days  later  another  party  of  wrecked  Frenchmen, 


T^2  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ii. 

three  hundred  and  fifty  in  number,  made  their  appear- 
ance on  the  coast.  Seventy  of  those — among  them  Ri- 
bault — consented  to  surrender  in  the  same  manner,  and 
in  the  same  manner  were  dispatched.  The  rest,  trusting 
to  the  Indians  and  Providence,  preferring  any  hardships 
to  unconditional  surrender,  wandered  inland  and  set  up 
a  temporary  fort.  They  were  not  left  long  in  peace. 
Menendez  pursued  and  attacked  them  behind  their  pali- 
sades. This  time  they  surrendered,  but  on  condition  that 
their  lives  should  be  spared.  Menendez  promised,  and  kept 
his  word. 

This  latter  fact  is  the  strongest  argument  to  refute  an 
accusation  brought  by  French  historians  against  the  in- 
human Spaniard.  A  sailor,  who  somehow  escaped  from 
the  former  butcheries  and  eventually  turned  up  in  France, 
is  the  only  authority  for  the  assertion  that  Menendez 
had  promised  life  to  the  wrecked  men  in  the  two  first  cases 
just  mentioned  as  condition  of  their  surrender.  Menendez 
himself,  in  his  official  report,  does  not  mention  any  such 
promise.  Considering  that  he  kept  his  promise  when  he 
did  make  one,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  him  rather  than 
the  escaped  Frenchman  as  to  the  point  of  the  unconditional 
surrender  of  the  two  stranded  companies  of  sailors.  This 
is  not  saying  that  we  justify  his  conduct.  We  think  it  in- 
human and  to  be  reprobated ;  while  we  allow  that  there 
may  be  found  some  justification  for  him  in  the  age,  which 
was  one  of  fierce  religious  warfare,  and  in  his  own  circum- 
stances, which  were  not  such  as  to  enable  him  to  feed  such 
a  large  number  of  men  in  addition  to  his  own.  We  regret 
that  the  first  city  of  the  United  States  was  given  such  a 
baptism  of  blood. 


CHAPTER    III. 

I'HE  PERMANENT  SETTLEMENT  OF  FLORIDA  (1565-1762). 

Thus  were  the  Spaniards  left  in  possession  of  Florida; 
and  the  possession  lasted  for  about  two  hundred  years,  when 
the  English  colonies  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  grew 
strong  enough  to  oust  them.  We  can  gi\e  but  the  brief- 
est synopsis  of  this  long  occupation.  In  order  to  under- 
stand the  church's  work  and  situation  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  two  classes  of  ecclesiastics  were  side  by  side  on 
Floridian  soil.  There  were  secular  priests,  directly  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Santiago  de  Cuba,  and 
later  on  of  the  Bishop  of  Havana.  Those  secular  priests 
were  stationed  in  St.  Augustine  and  at  the  other  posts  held 
by  the  Spanish  soldiers  and  settlers.  There  was  constantly, 
with  exceptions  of  vacancies  between  the  incumbents,  a 
parish  priest  with  a  certain  number  of  assistants  in  St. 
Augustine,  which  was  a  regularly  constituted  parish  ;  in  the 
other  posts  there  were  chaplains.  When  a  vacancy  oc- 
curred, generally  the  religious  in  the  province  acted  during 
the  interim  in  the  stead  of  the  secular  priests,  as  the  records 
abundantly  show.  As  for  the  Indian  missions,  only  regu- 
lars w^ere  employed — at  first  Dominicans,  then  Jesuits,  and 
after  the  two  /ormer  had  abandoned  the  field,  then  Fran- 
ciscans, who  from  the  year  1577  occupied  the  field  exclu- 
sively. I  shall  make  but  occasional  and  brief  reference  to 
the  secular  clergy  and  their  work  ;  for  as  the  purely  Span- 
ish population  did  not  take  on  any  great  expansion,  neither 

33 


34  THE  ROMAN  ^CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ill. 

did  the  secular  clergy  and  its  work.  The  glory  of  the  Flo- 
ridian  church  is  in  its  martyrs,  its  missionaries,  and  they 
were  the  regulars. 

In  1566  came  some  Dominicans,  two  of  whom,  with 
thirty  soldiers,  were  sent  to  the  Chesapeake.  The  inten- 
tion of  Menendez  was  to  occupy  the  bay  as  a  northern 
advance  post  and  as  a  possible  strait  to  the  western  ocean. 
The  plan  was  baffled.  The  vessel  that  carried  the  mission- 
aries and  the  garrison  failed  to  reach  its  destination,  and 
sailed  back  to  Spain. 

Philip  II.  had  asked  of  St.  Francis  Borgia,  general  of  the 
Jesuits,  to  detail  some  of  his  subjects  to  go  with  Menendez. 
Two  of  them  sailed  in  1566.  They  were  Peter  Martinez 
and  John  Rogel,  with  a  lay  brother.  The  vessel  reached 
the  coast  of  Florida  at  a  point  unknown  to  the  captain. 
Father  Martinez  volunteered  to  join  a  reconnoitering  party 
in  a  small  boat.  No  sooner  had  they  pushed  off  when  a 
storm  came  up  that  drove  the  vessel  out  to  sea;  it  reached 
Havana  some  time  after.  Martinez  and  the  reconnoitering 
party  were  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  Indians,  who,  sparing 
the  sailors,  massacred  the  missionary  on  Cumberland  Island. 

In  1568  four  Jesuit  fathers  and  six  brothers  arrived. 
They  dispersed  throughout  Florida  to  various  points.  One 
of  them,  Father  Sedeno,  took  up  his  abode  on  Amelia 
Island  ;  he  is  the  pioneer  priest  of  Georgia.  With  him  was 
the  lay  brother  Baez,  who  wrote  a  grammar  of  the  aborigi- 
nal language  and  prepared  a  catechism.  Father  Rogel, 
who  had  gone  to  Cuba  to  found  a  school  for  Floridian 
boys,  returned  and  set  up  a  mission  on  Santa  Elena  Island, 
Port  Royal  Sound ;  he  is  the  pioneer  priest  of  South  Car- 
olina. It  is  well  to  rememter  that  the  statement  that  cate- 
chisms and  other  religious  books  were  translated  into  the 
native  idioms  means  a  great  deal.  It  means  not  only  that 
such  translations  serve  for  the  fresh  missionaries  who  have 


1 


RECALL    OF   THE   J  ESC  ITS.  35 

to  learn  the  language,  but  also  that  they  are  for  the  use  of 
the  natives ;  and  this  implies  that  the  aborigines  are  taught 
to  read,  and  consequently  that  the  missionaries  are  school- 
inasters — that  the  school  is  set  up  by  the  side  of  the  church. 
It  is  a  well-ascertained  fact  that  in  time  the  native  Flo- 
ridians  learned  writing,  for  we  have  the  signatures  of  some  of 
them  still  extant.  There  is  nothing  astonishing  in  this  when 
we  remember  that  the  church  had  been  constantly  at  work 
in  Florida  from  1565  to  1763,  almost  two  hundred  years. 
Contact  with  Christianity  and  civilization  during  so  long  a 
period  must  naturally  have  had  an  effect  on  the  Indians, 
among  whom  at  one  time  Christians  were  reckoned  by  the 
twenty  and  thirty  thousand. 

Once  more  did  Menendez  attempt  to  settle  a  military 
and  missionary  post  on  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  this  time  he 
sent  Jesuits  instead  of  Dominicans.  Fathers  Segura  and 
Louis  de  Quiros,  with  six  lay  brothers,  left  St.  Augustine 
in  August,  1570,  sailed  up  the  Potomac  some  distance, 
and  landed  at  a  place  not  ascertained.  But  soon  after  the 
vessel  that  brought  them  had  left  they  were  put  to  death 
by  the  Indians.  Menendez,  discouraged,  gave  up  the  pro- 
ject which,  if  realized,  might  have  changed  the  course  of 
history  on  our  shores,  or  at  least  have  delayed  the  disap- 
pearance of  Spain  from  Florida. 

St.  Francis  Borgia,  when  he  heard  of  this  last  disaster  to 
his  American  subjects,  recalled  the  surviving  Jesuits  from 
Florida  and  ordered  them  to  Mexico.  Menendez  died  in 
1574,  leaving  the  ecclesiastical  status  of  the  province  in  a 
deplorable  condition.  Fortunately,  two  years  afterward 
the  Franciscans  took  up  the  field  abandoned  by  the 
Dominicans  and  Jesuits,  and  retained  it  until  it  passed 
out  of  Spanish  hands. 

Their  labors  began  in  1577.  Fifteen  years  later  four 
fathers  and  two  lay  brothers  were  at  work,  and  two  years 


36  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  hi. 

later  four  more  fathers  with  one  lay  brother  increased  the 
band  of  heroic  missionaries.  As  their  numbers  increased, 
so  also  the  number  of  Christian  Indians ;  by  degrees  they 
extended  the  line  of  their  missions  from  the  coast  north- 
ward and  southward  and  into  the  interior  a  distance  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred  miles.  The  progress  of 
mission  work  and  conversions  was  arrested  for  a  while  by 
a  persecution  excited  (1597)  by  a  young  chief  who  tired 
of  the  restraints  of  Christianity  on  his  passions,  and  enlisted 
on  his  side  the  unconverted  Indians  and  those  as  bad  as 
himself.  There  was  a  widespread  looting  of  the  mission 
chapels ;  five  fathers  and  one  lay  brother  fell  victims  to  the 
fury  of  the  persecutors. 

Not  only  did  the  Franciscans  labor  as  preachers  of  the 
gospel  and  die  as  martyrs  to  their  duty,  but  they  also  re- 
duced to  grammar  and  put  into  print  some  of  the  many 
dialects  of  Florida.  Father  Francis  Pareja  published  in 
Mexico  (1612-27)  two  catechisms  in  the  Timuquan  lan- 
guage, a  confessionario,  and  a  grammar,  and  is  said  to  have 
written  treatises  on  purgatory,  heaven,  and  hell,  and  a 
book  of  prayers.  An  item  such  as  this  tells  volumes  as 
to  the  progress  of  the  church. 

Florida  was  in  the  diocese  of  Santiago  de  Cuba.  It  was 
visited  (1607)  by  Bishop  Juan  Cabezas  de  Altamirano,  who 
inspected  most  of  the  missions  and  administered  the  sacra- 
ment of  confirmation.  In  1616  a  delegate  was  sent  by  the 
bishop  to  make  the  visitation.  By  the  year  1634  there 
were  in  Florida  thirty-five  Franciscans,  maintaining  forty- 
four  missions,  and  the  number  of  Christian  Indians  was 
between  twenty-five  and  thirty  thousand.  St.  Augustine 
had  three  hundred  inhabitants,  mostly  Spaniards,  a  parish 
church,  a  convent  of  Franciscans,  two  hospitals,  and  a 
number  of  religious  confraternities.  The  greatest  need  of 
the  province  was  a  resident  bishop,  and  though  the  holy 


DANGERS    TO    THE   M/SS/OXS.  37 

see  had  been  petitioned  (1655)  to  erect  St.  Augustine  into 
a  bishopric,  or  at  least  a  vicariate,  nothing  was  done  at  the 
time. 

This  was  the  palmy  period  of  Cathohcity  in  Spanish 
Florida.  It  extends  from  1625  to  1700.  Prosperity  and 
peace  begat  here  on  a  small  scale  the  result  often  met 
with  on  a  larger  scale  in  the  church  of  other  lands :  I  mean 
neglect  of  duty,  disobedience,  and  disunion.  No  doubt  the 
absence  of  a  bishop  made  the  evil  worse.  When  Gabriel 
Diaz  Vara  Calderon,  Bishop  of  Santiago,  came  in  1674  to 
make  the  canonical  visitation  of  this  part  of  his  diocese,  he 
found  such  ignorance  among  the  Indians  that  he  had  to 
order  the  teaching  of  catechism  on  Sundays  and  holidays, 
and  to  command  under  severe  penalties  all  masters  to  send 
their  Indian  servants  to  the  catechetical  instructions.  One 
cheering  item  of  this  visitation,  and  a  proof  that  the 
Floridian  church  was  on  the  highway  to  self-support,  is 
that  he  gave  minor  orders  to  seven  young  men.  Evidently 
a  native  clergy  was  growing  up.  His  visitation  lasted  eight 
months,  and  he  must  have  come  very  close  to  the  Eng- 
lish settlements  in  South  Carolina.  His  confirmations 
amounted  to  13,152,  proof  of  a  large  Catholic  popula- 
tion. He  toned  up  the  clergy,  enlarged  and  beautified  the 
churches,  and  increased  the  number  of  missionaries.  In 
the  year  1684  a  diocesan  synod  was  held  in  Cuba.  Its 
decrees  were  law  in  Florida,  and  special  regulations  were 
made  for  the  Indian  missions  of  that  province. 

Abroad  in  the  north  was  looming  up  a  danger  that  was 
destined  to  destroy  the  church  in  Florida,  as  we  shall  see 
presently  ;  but  within  there  was  at  this  time  an  evil  no  less 
pernicious.  A  premonition  of  this  evil  was  given  in  1674, 
during  the  administration  of  Bishop  Calderon.  Before 
coming  in  person  for  the  visitation,  he  had  delegated  from 
Cuba  a  secular  priest  to  make  a  report  on  the  condition  of 


38  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  lit. 

the  province.  The  Franciscans  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  delegate,  and  demanded  that  one  of  their  order  should 
hold  that  office.  In  1688  Don  Diego  Evelino  de  Com- 
postella,  newly  appointed  Bishop  of  Cuba,  sent  to  Florida 
a  learned  Cuban  priest  to  examine  the  condition  of  the 
church  and  report  to  him.  Again  the  Franciscans  refused 
to  recognize  his  right  to  visit  canonically  their  convents 
and  missions,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  not  the  bishop 
nor  a  religious  of  their  institute,  and  quoted  in  their  favor 
a  former  royal  order,  as  if  the  king  were  the  authority  in 
such  matters.  They  went  further,  as  they  were  logically 
bound  to  do  ;  one  of  them  wrote  a  work  in  which  he  denied 
that  Florida  was  part  of  the  diocese  of  Cuba,  and  asserted 
that  its  bishop  had  no  right  to  send  a  delegate  to  examine 
the  Franciscan  missions.  Truly  success  had  made  them 
overbold  and  closed  their  eyes  to  the  truth  that  force  comes 
from  obedience  and  union,  especially  in  the  presence  of 
the  foe. 

A  foe  was  hovering  on  their  northern  frontier.  The  palmy 
period  of  the  Floridian  church  was  about  to  come  to  an 
end.  The  territory  now  covered  by  Georgia,  the  two  Caro- 
linas,  and  Virginia  had  been  claimed  originally  by  Spain 
as  a  part  of  Florida.  We  have  seen  how  various  attempts 
had  been  made  by  her  to  occupy  and  hold  the  Chesapeake, 
but  without  success.  In  1584  Raleigh  landed  on  the  coast 
of  Carolina,  at  Roanoke,  a  colony  that  was  short-lived  and 
disappeared  mysteriously  forever.  The  territory  from  tiie 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  St.  John's  River  was  ceded  by  the 
English  crown  in  the  grant  of  1606  under  the  name  of 
Virginia.  The  grant  of  1620  cut  off  the  portion  above  the 
present  Virginia's  northern  line,  leaving  as  Virginia  the 
country  south  of  that  line.  A  further  dismemberment 
took  place  in  1663,  erecting  under  the  name  of  Carolina  a 
province  comprising  the  present  States  of  North  and  South 


THE  MISSIONS  ATTACKED.  39 

Carolina  and  Georgia.  In  1669-70  William  Sayle  planted 
a  colony  near  the  site  of  Charleston,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  South  Carolina.  In  1679  some  Scotch  Pres- 
byterians settled  at  Port  Royal,  two  days'  sail  from  St. 
Augustine.  The  Spaniards  attacked  this  settlement  in 
1680  and  destroyed  it.  Then  began  the  struggle  that  was 
to  end  in  the  destruction  of  their  power  and  their  missions 
in  Florida. 

Anticipating  the  coming  danger,  the  governor  of  St. 
Augustine,  in  1684,  tried  to  persuade  the  Christian 
Indians  living  near  the  border  line  of  the  English  posses- 
sions to  move  southward,  that  they  might  be  out  of 
harm's  way  and  nearer  to  the  protecting  troops  of  the 
capital.  The  unsuspecting  Indians  refused  to  abandon 
their  homes.  Soon  after,  at  the  instigation  of  Moore, 
governor  of  South  Carolina,  the  Appalachicolas  attacked 
the  mission  of  Santa  Catalina,  on  the  island  of  that  name 
off  the  coast  of  Georgia,  and  the  mission  of  Santa  Fe,  in 
the  province  of  Timaqua,  destroyed  the  chapels  and  houses 
of  the  missionaries,  burned  the  villages,  massacred  many, 
and  carried  off  not  a  few  to  be  sold  as  slaves  in  the  Caro- 
linas.  In  1701  began  in  Europe  the  war  of  the  Spanish 
Succession,  between  Germany,  Holland,  and  England  on 
the  one  hand,  and  France  and  Spain  on  the  other.  This 
war  overleaped  the  Atlantic,  and  had  its  counterpart  on 
American  soil  between  the  English  of  the  Carolinas  and 
Georgia  and  the  Spaniards  of  Florida. 

A  land  expedition  under  Colonel  Daniel,  composed  of 
Carolinian  militiamen  and  an  Indian  contingent,  and  a  naval 
expedition  under  Governor  Moore  of  South  Carolina,  after 
spreading  destruction  on  their  paths,  effected  a  junction 
before  St.  Augustine,  October,  1702,  and  laid  siege  to  the 
city.  It  lasted  fifty  days.  The  inhabitants  fled  into  the 
interior,  leaving  the  garrison  under  brave  Zuniga  to  hold 


40  TME  kOMAN  CATnOlJCS.  [Chap.  iiT. 

the  fort.  The  appearance  of  a  Spanish  fleet  with  reinforce- 
ments caused  Moore  to  burn  his  ships  and  retreat  overland 
with  Daniel;  not,  however,  until  they  had  set  fire  to  the 
town.  The  news  of  the  destruction  of  St.  Augustine  pro- 
duced a  deep  sensation  in  Spain.  The  king  ordered  that 
the  revenues  of  the  vacant  bishoprics  of  the  kingdom 
should  go  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  church,  the  convent, 
and  the  public  buildings  of  the  ill-fated  city.  It  is  to  the 
dishonor  of  the  English  that  they  intentionally  gave  to  the 
flames  a  valuable  library,  the  collection  of  many  years. 

Another  attack  from  Carolina  under  the  same  Governor 
Moore  was  made  two  years  later  (1704),  with  the  inten- 
tion of  breaking  up  the  missions  and  carrying  off  slaves.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  there  was  religious  as  well  as  national 
hatred  in  the  enterprise.  A  sudden  dash  was  made  into 
the  territory  of  the  Appalachees,  where  missions  were 
numerous  and  flourishing.  A  bold  stand  against  the 
raiders  was  maintained  by  Lieutenant  Mexia,  with  thirty 
Spaniards  and  four  hundred  Indians,  as  long  as  the 
ammunition  lasted.  Many  were  killed  and  many  made 
prisoners,  among  them  Lieutenant  Mexia,  Fathers  Parga, 
Miranda,  and  Delgado.  Some  of  the  prisoners  were 
handed  over  to  the  Indian  allies  of  the  English,  and  were 
tortured  and  burned  at  the  stake.  Father  Parga  was  thus 
treated  in  spite  of  Father  Miranda's  protestations  and 
prayers  and  Father  Delgado's  attempt  to  rescue  him,  for 
which  brotherly  service  Delgado  was  slain  on  the  spot. 
Ten  towns  of  the  province  were  looted,  their  churches  de- 
stroyed, and  the  sacred  contents  carried  off.  Proceeding 
on  their  way,  the  invaders  came  to  Fort  San  Luis,  which 
they  found  too  formidable  to  attack;  they  offered  Mexia, 
four  Spanish  soldiers,  and  Father  Miranda  for  a  ransom 
so  considerable  that  the  commander  was  unable  to  give  it. 
In  barbarous  revenge  the  prisoners  were  tortured  and  put 


THE  FTSHOPS   or   /  I.ORIDA.  4 1 

to  death  with  all  the  ingenious  cruelty  of  the  Indians.  The 
scenes  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  northern  Jesuits,  so  graphic- 
ally described  by  Parkman,  were  enacted  beneath  the  balmy 
skies  of  Florida,  with  the  connivance,  if  not  under  the  eyes 
and  by  the  command,  of  the  governor  of  a  Christian  colony. 
Moore  went  back  from  this  raid  with  a  thousand  Christian 
Indians  for  the  slave-markets  of  Carolina. 

These  repeated  attacks  completely  ruined  the  missions 
north  and  west  of  St.  Augustine.  The  few  remaining 
Christians  in  the  Appalachee  country  fled  for  protection  to 
Mobile,  under  cover  of  the  French  guns.  From  that 
quarter,  too,  danger  threatened  the  Spaniards,  now  in- 
closed between  the  English  possessions  in  the  north  and 
the  French  possessions  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Pensa- 
cola  was  taken  and  destroyed  by  the  French  in  17 19. 
The  time  was  nearing  when  North  America  was  to  be 
cleared  for  the  great  struggle  between  the  two  great 
rivals,  France  and  England.  Between  them,  and  before 
they  came  into  deadly  contact,  Spain  was  doomed  to  be 
crushed  and  brushed  out  of  the  way. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  those  misfortunes  and  forebodings 
that  was  realized  a  long  and  earnest  wish  of  the  Christians 
of  Florida — the  appointment  of  a  resident  bishop.  The  first 
was  Dionisio  Rezino,  preconized  as  Bishop  of  Adramitum, 
ill  partibiis  iiifidcliiiiii,  and  auxiliary  to  the  Bishop  of 
Santiago  de  Cuba ;  he  was  consecrated  in  Merida,  Yuca- 
tan, in  1 709.  No  record  shows  how  long  he  resided  in 
St.  Augustine,  though  there  is  evidence  that  he  gave  con- 
firmation in  that  city  on  June  29,  1709.  It  is  known  that 
he  died  in  Havana  on  September  14,  171  i.  A  vacancy  of 
twenty  years  followed,  during  which  interval  the  province 
was  visited  twice  by  delegates  of  the  Bishop  of  Santiago. 
Nothing  can  give  a  better  idea  of  the  deplorable  state  of 
the  missions  about  this  time  than  the  Visitor's  report  of 


42  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  hi. 

1727 ;  Florida,  that  had  contained  a  hundred  years  before 
ahnost  thirty  thousand  Christian  Indians,  could  show  in 
that  year  only  one  thousand. 

The  second  Bishop  of  Florida,  Martinez  de  Tejada, 
preconized  Bishop  of  TricaH,  i.  p.  i.,  and  auxiliary  to  the 
Bishop  of  Santiago,  came  to  St.  Augustine  in  1735.  The 
city  at  that  time  had  a  population  of  fifteen  hundred 
souls — Spaniards  and  negro  slaves — under  the  spiritual 
care  of  one  parish  priest  and  two  assistants.  The  residence 
of  Bishop  Tejada  in  Florida  extended  over  ten  years,  dur- 
ing which  time  he  made  three  visitations  of  the  entire  pro- 
vince. Evidently  the  orders  of  the  king  of  Spain,  already 
alluded  to,  in  regard  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  church  of  the 
city  had  not  been  carried  out;  for  the  cathedral  in  1735 
was  but  a  small  chapel,  fifty  by  thirty-six  feet,  so  inade- 
quate that  most  of  the  congregation  had  to  remain  out 
on  the  square  during  divine  service.  Among  many  good 
works  which  the  bishop  either  renewed  or  inaugurated, 
special  mention  should  be  made  of  a  classical  school  which 
he  opened  for  the  training  of  young  clerics.  The  English 
invasions  had  put  an  end  to  the  many  flourishing  Indian 
schools  of  the  province ;  this  was  the  only  one  left. 

An  incident  recorded  during  the  bishopric  of  Tejada 
gives  an  insight  into  the  composition  of  the  Floridian 
clergy,  the  larger  portion  of  which  were  Franciscans. 
They  formed  an  independent  province  known  as  Santa 
Elena  de  Florida. '  The  election  of  the  provincial  in  1 745 
was  the  occasion  of  grave  controversy,  and  was  declared 
later  on  to  be  null  by  the  higher  authorities.  The  diffi- 
culty came  from  national  rivalries,  and  the  rivalries  were 
between  the  religious  imported  from  Spain  and  the  relig- 
ious born  in  America.  Here  we  have  evidence  that  the 
native  clergy  was  strong,  and  that  the  movement  so  well 
known  among  us  now  as  Americanism  was  a  factor  in  the 


WAR    WITH   THE   ENGLISH  COLONIES.  43 

church  of  America  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  Is 
it  any  wonder,  when  it  is  remembered  that  previous  to  this 
incident  the  church  had  existed  in  Florida  for  one  hundred 
and  eighty  years  ?  The  Spaniards  of  the  province  had  been 
native  Americans  for  generations,  and  it  was  but  natural  that 
they  should  prefer  a  native  to  an  imported  priesthood. 

During  the  administration  of  Bishop  Tejada.  St.  Augus- 
tine was  attacked  once  more  from  the  nortli.  The  attack 
was  led  by  Governor  Oglethorpe  of  Georgia.  The  country 
between  the  Savannah  and  the  St.  John's  rivers  was  a  part 
of  the  old  Carolina  claim  ;  but  when  the  Carolinas  became 
royal  provinces  the  king  reserved  this  unsettled  district  as 
crown  lands  (171  7).  In  1732  James  Oglethorpe  formed  a 
company  for  the  settlement  of  this  tract,  which  was  to  be 
named  Georgia  in  honor  of  George  II.  The  city  of  Savan- 
nah was  founded  by  English  settlers  under  the  lead  of  Ogle- 
thorpe in  1733;  a  year  later  the  town  of  Ebenezer  was 
founded  by  exiled  Germans  from  Salzburg;  Augusta  was 
planted  in  the  same  year  as  an  outpost  in  the  Indian  country. 
Two  years  later  Frederica  was  founded  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Altamaha,  on  the  Spanish  frontier.  In  i  739  war  broke  out 
in  Europe  between  Spain  and  England.  Fearing  an  attack 
from  the  Spaniards  of  Florida,  Oglethorpe  decided  to  take 
the  offensive,  marched  into  Florida  with  two  thousand 
troops  supported  by  a  fleet  of  seven  ships,  and  laid  siege 
to  St.  Augustine.  Though  troops  from  Carolina  came  down 
to  reinforce  the  Georgians,  Oglethorpe  was  compelled  to 
abandon  the  siege ;  for  sickness  had  set  in  among  his  men, 
and  there  were  many  desertions.  Two  years  later  (1742) 
the  Spaniards  in  their  turn  attacked  Frederica  by  land  and 
sea ;  but  Oglethorpe  held  the  place  gallantly  until  the  arrival 
of  English  vessels  frightened  off  the  besiegers. 

These  wars  and  constant  dangers  of  war  ended  the  ruin 
of  Catholicity  in  Florida.     When  the  third  bishop,  Ponce  y 


44  THE  ROMAN  CATHOIJC.'^.  [Chap.  ill. 

Carasco,  came  in  1751,  there  were  in  the  immediate  vicin- 
ity of  St.  Augustine  only  four  Indian  missions,  with  one 
hundred  and  thirty-six  souls;  in  other  words,  there  was  no 
Catholicity  in  Florida  outside  of  the  Spanish  population  of 
the  city.  Very  little  is  known  of  the  administration  of  this 
third  bishop,  preconized  Bishop  of  Adramitum,  i.  p.  i.,  and 
auxiliary  to  the  Bishop  of  Santiago,  for  he  left  Florida  in 
1755-     And  now  we  are  nearing  the  end. 

Havana  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  English  in  1762.  The 
bishop  of  the  city,  Peter  Augustine  Morrell  de  Santa  Cruz, 
was  summoned  by  the  Earl  of  Albemarle,  the  British  com- 
mander, to  give  him  aid  in  extorting  forced  levies  from 
the  clergy  of  his  diocese.  Because  of  his  refusal  he  was 
accused  of  conspiracy,  taken  by  force  to  an  English  vessel, 
and  carried  ofT  to  Charleston.  Thence,  after  a  stay  of 
some  weeks,  he  was  allowed  to  go  to  St.  Augustine.  The 
bishop  put  his  forced  sojourn  in  Florida  to  good  use :  he 
made  the  canonical  visitation  of  St.  Augustine  and  the  sur- 
rounding missions,  confirmed  six  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
persons,  and  consoled  and  encouraged  the  clergy  and  peo- 
ple. He  was  conveyed  back  to  his  see  after  peace  had 
been  made  between  Spain  and  England.  The  peace  cost  a 
great  price.  In  order  to  recover  Havana,  Spain  had  to 
cede  Florida.  This  cession  was  indeed  advantageous  to 
the  English,  for  it  rounded  out  their  possessions  (the  sea- 
board from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  was 
now  under  the  British  flag),  but  it  put  an  end,  for  a  time,  to 
Catholicity  in  Florida.  A  general  emigration  of  Spaniards 
soon  followed  the  disappearance  of  the  Spanish  flag.  They 
left  behind  them  the  witnesses  of  their  passage  in  churches, 
which  in  better  and  later  days  became  once  more  the  homes 
of  a  flourishing  Catholicity. 

The  further  history  of  Catholicity  in  Florida  belongs  to 
the  second  part  of  this  work. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE     PRELIMINARY     EXPLORATIONS     OF     NEW     MEXICO 

(1539-82). 

New  Mexico  is  a  century  older  in  European  civiliza- 
tion, and  several  centuries  older  in  a  semicivilization  of  its 
own,  than  any  other  part  of  the  United  States.  It  had  its 
walled  cities  of  stone  long  before  the  time  of  Columbus,  and 
has  some  of  them  yet.  Romantic  as  it  is  in  itself,  with  its 
vast  adobe  buildings,  its  abrupt  mountains,  its  rock-walled 
canons,  its  sunburned  mesas,  its  gaunt,  treeless  plains,  its 
intense  blue  sky,  and  over  all  its  oriental  sunlight,  it  is  no 
less  romantic  in  its  history  of  the  Spanish  conquest,  record- 
ing superhuman  marches,  awful  privations,  devoted  hero- 
ism, and  sudden  and  overwhelming  rebellions. 

The  American  is  to  be  found  there  to-day,  and  what 
changes  in  the  strange  people  he  may  bring  about  in  the 
future  we  can  only  conjecture.  But  up  to  the  present  time 
New  Mexico  has  remained  what  it  was  three  hundred  years 
ago,  in  spite  of  the  stars  and  stripes,  the  Yankee  trader,  the 
wild  cowboy,  and  the  tireless  prospector.  There  are  the 
nine  thousand  Pueblo  Indians,  peaceful,  sedentary,  tillers  of 
a  soil  snatched  from  barrenness  b}^  a  system  of  irrigation  as 
old  as  themselves.  Catholics  since  the  days  the  Franciscans 
came  to  them,  and,  though  Catholics,  wedded  still  to  some 
of  their  ancestral  superstitions,  and,  like  their  ancestors, 
frequenting  the  mysterious  estufas,  to  which  no  .stranger  is 
admitted.     There  are  the  ten  thousand  Navajo  Indians, 

45 


46  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  iv. 

sullen,  nomad,  horse-stealing,  dwellers  in  the  saddle,  at- 
tached to  the  old  paganism ;  in  a  word,  such  as  they  wxre 
when  the  Spaniards  encountered  them.  There  are  the 
Mexicans,  descendants  more  or  less  pure  of  the  Castilian 
invaders,  poor  but  hospitable,  shiftless  but  courteous,  as 
Catholic  as  their  forefathers.  The  Pueblos  have  nineteen 
compact  little  cities,  the  wonder  of  the  traveler;  the  Nava- 
jos  roam  the  prairies  with  their  tents ;  the  Mexicans  live 
in  some  hundreds  of  villages.  • 

In  1581-83  Espejo  visited  seventy-five  pueblos  during 
his  progress  through  the  Southwest,  and  estimated  the 
population  at  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand — a  mere 
guess,  and  an  extravagant  one.  There  never  were  in  the 
Southwest  in  historic  times  more  than  thirty  or  thirty-five 
thousand  Indians.  The  ruined  pueblos  scattered  up  and 
down  the  land  are  evidences  not,  as  so  many  think,  of  vast 
populations  that  have  disappeared,  but  of  frequent  migra- 
tions, when  the  old  home  was  abandoned  and  a  new  one 
was  set  up.  The  Apache,  a  drought,  an  epidemic,  a  vol- 
canic disturbance,  a  hundred  unknown  superstitious  omens, 
caused  the  tribes  to  bid  farewell  to  the  walls  of  a  former 
dwelling,  to  seek  a  better  site  and  rebuild  their  terraced 
cities  elsewhere. 

Some  of  the  pueblos  were  of  great  size,  containing  from 
two  hundred  to  one  thousand  inhabitants.  Wegegi,  in 
the  Chaco  Canon,  was  700  feet  in  circumference ;  Pueblo 
Bonito  was  544  feet  by  314;  Chipillo,  320  by  300.  At 
Taos  and  the  western  pueblos  the  Indians  are  living  to-day 
where  the  Spaniards  found  them.  Taos  is  250  by  130  feet, 
and  five  stories  high.  Most  of  the  ruined  pueblos  were 
built  on  the  top  of  hills  or  mesas.  The  most  remarkable  is 
Acoma ;  it  is  almost  inaccessible,  except  by  a  narrow  trail 
and  steps  cut  in  the  mountain  side. 

The  pueblo  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  John  Fiske :  "  The 


THE    COMMUNAL   PUEBLO.  47 

typical  form  of  the  pueblo  is  that  of  a  soHd  block  of  buildings 
making  three  sides  of  an  extensive  rectangular  inclosure  or 
courtyard.  On  the  inside,  facing  upon  the  courtyard,  the 
structure  is  but  one  story  in  height ;  on  the  outside,  look- 
ing out  upon  the  surrounding  country,  it  rises  to  three  or 
even  five  and  six  stories.  From  inside  to  outside  the  flat 
roofs  rise  in  a  series  of  terraces,  so  that  the  floor  of  tlie 
second  row  is  continuous  with  the  roof  of  the  first,  the  floor 
of  the  third  row  is  continuous  with  the  roof  of  the  second, 
and  so  on.  The  fourth  side  of  the  rectangle  is  formed  by 
a  solid  block  of  one-story  apartments,  usually  with  one  or 
two  gateways,  overlooked  by  higher  structures  within  the 
inclosure.  Except  these  gateways  there  is  no  entrance 
from  without.  The  only  windows  are  frowning  loop-holes, 
and  access  to  the  several  apartments  is  gained  through  sky- 
lights reached  by  portable  ladders."  It  is  a  joint  tenement 
affair,  so  to  speak.  The  Pueblo  Indians  were  organized  in 
clans.  They  were  governed  by  a  council  of  sachems,  the 
principal  sachem  being  called  by  the  Spaniards  a  goberna- 
dor.  They  had  an  organized  priesthood  and  an  elaborate 
ceremonial.  In  every  pueblo  there  was  at  least  one  estufa 
or  council  house  for  governmental  and  religious  meetings. 
The  pueblo  of  Zuni  seems  to  have  had  at  one  time  five 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  ruined  pueblo  of  Hungo  Pavie, 
in  the  valley  of  Rio  Chaco,  could  have  accommodated  one 
thousand.  Pueblo  Bonito,  in  the  same  valley,  had  room 
for  three  thousand. 

The  use  of  adobe  brick  or  stone  in  building  and  the 
gathering  of  large  numbers  in  vast  communal  houses,  or 
pueblos,  as  the  Spaniards  called  them,  are  the  most  dis- 
tinctive marks  of  the  grade  of  culture  attained  by  the  In- 
dians in  this  province ;  and  the  culture  goes  on  increasing 
from  New  Mexico,  through  Mexico  and  Yucatan,  down  to 
Peru,  where  it  reaches  its  highest  development.     North  of 


48  THE  ROMAN  CA  TllOLICS.  [Chap.  iv. 

New  Mexico  are  the  wandering,  roving  tribes,  who  get  their 
subsistence  by  the  chase.  In  New  Mexico  and  south  are 
the  Sedentary  Indians,  whose  subsistence  comes  mainly 
from  agriculture.  The  staple  of  agriculture  is  maize  or 
Indian  corn,  a  grain  that  deserves  a  written  history,  for  it 
has  had  much  to  do  with  the  making  of  America.  The  re- 
gion in  which  lived  the  New  Mexican  Indians  is  by  nature 
arid ;  it  was  only  by  irrigation  that  it  was  rendered  fertile. 
It  was  the  maize  that  suggested  the  irrigation.  For  this 
reason  the  pueblos  are  always  found  situated  near  a  river, 
and  their  gardens,  outside  the  walls,  are  easily  accessible 
to  the  water  by  canals  and  sluices. 

It  may  therefore  be  said  that  the  Indians  of  New  Mexico 
had  raised  themselves  out  of  savagery  into  barbarism,  but 
not  yet  into  civilization.  A  word  in  explanation.  Where 
society  rests  on  a  natural  basis  of  subsistence — the  chase, 
fishing — you  have  savagery  ;  such  was  the  condition  of  the 
Indian  tribes  north  of  New  Mexico.  Where  an  artificial 
basis  of  subsistence,  such  as  agriculture,  has  been  estab- 
lished, and  the  substitution  has  not  been  wrought  out  to 
its  ultimate  results  for  want  of  time  or  other  unfavorable 
circumstances,  you  have  barbarism.  Where  the  substitu- 
tion has  been  wrought  out  to  its  ultimate  results  of  machin- 
ery, trade,  buildings,  transportation,  etc.,  you  have  civiliza- 
tion. The  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  being  agriculturists, 
were  in  the  middle  stage  between  savagery  and  civilization. 
Agriculture  furnished  them  not  only  food,  but  clothing 
also.  When  the  chase  ceases  to  be  the  main  occupation 
of  man,  he  must  look  to  some  other  source  than  skins  of 
animals  wherewith  to  clothe  himself ;  and  if  no  domestic 
animals  whose  wool  may  be  done  into  texture  are  at 
hand,  then  must  he  search  for  material  in  his  agriculture. 
Such  was  the  case  with  the  Indians  of  New  Mexico.  Cot- 
ton supplied  them  clothing  as  maize  supplied  them  food. 


LEGENDARY    TRADITIONS.  49 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Spanish  missionaries  of  New 
Mexico  had  to  deal  with  a  people  not  altogether  barbarous, 
who  knew  something  of  building,  and  were  capable  of  rais- 
ing to  the  uses  of  religion  churches  not  unworthy  to  stand 
on  European  soil.  If  the  ruins  of  their  pueblos  are  still  the 
wonder  of  the  traveler,  so  also  their  churches,  ruined  or 
preserved,  are  evidences  of  the  zeal  of  the  friars  and  of  the 
skill  and  faith  of  the  Indians  under  their  charge.  The  con- 
querors gave  the  natives  what  they  lacked  for  a  more  per- 
fected agricultural  existence:  better  implements,  iron,  im- 
proved and  quicker  modes  of  building  and  weaving,  plants, 
vegetables,  and  fruits  unknown,  and  above  all,  domestic 
animals — the  cow,  the  sheep,  the  horse.  Missionaries  gave 
them  schools  in  which  not  only  letters,  but  trades  and  in- 
dustry, were  taught.  A  fairer  field  by  far  was  this  for  re- 
ligion to  work  in — because  there  was  a  basis  of  natural 
advance  on  which  to  build  up  religion — than  the  northern 
territory,  where  roamed  and  warred  constantly  the  Huron, 
the  Iroquois,  the  Dakota;  or  than  the  southeastern  sea- 
board of  Florida,  where  dwelt  savages  only  less  nomadic 
'than  the  tribes  just  named  ;  or  even  than  California,  where 
the  missionary  found  the  least  warlike  and  m'Sst  degraded 
of  all  the  aborigines.  The  field  being  so  favorable,  it  is  no 
wonder  the  success  was  great. 

The  home  of  the  Pueblos  lay  within  the  territory  now 
comprised  in  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  southwestern  Colorado, 
and  southeastern  Utah.  About  these  people  a  double 
tradition,  one  European,  the  other  American,  had  gathered 
and  commingled,  encompassing  them  with  a  romantic 
interest,  which  was  not  the  least  moti\e  that  drew  the 
Spaniards  from  Mexico  to  the  exploration  and  occupation 
of  their  country.  The  European  tradition,  current  among 
the  Spaniards,  related  that  a  certain  bishop  of  Lisbon,  after 
the  conquest  of  Spain  by  the  Mohammedans  in  the  eighth 


50  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  iv. 

century,  emigrated  with  a  large  following  to  an  island  or 
a  group  of  islands  out  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  founded 
seven  cities  there.  The  Island  of  the  Seven  Cities  was 
known  in  the  middle  ages  as  Antilia.  The  name  "Antilles," 
given  the  West  Indies,  preserves  to  this  day  the  legend  of 
the  Seven  Cities.  As  these  fabulous  towns  were  not  found 
on  any  islands  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  they  were  transferred 
by  the  imagination  of  the  Spaniards  to  some  remote  and 
hidden  quarter  in  the  continent. 

The  Indian  tradition,  current  among  the  Nahuatl  tribes 
of  Mexico  and  Central  America,  related  that  in  the  distant 
past  their  ancestors  had  issued  from  Seven  Caves,  situated 
in  the  north.  The  Seven  Cities  and  the  Seven  Caves  be- 
came mixed  up  into  one  and  the  same  legend  in  the 
thoughts  of  the  Spaniards.  When  Cabeza  de  Vaca  (1536) 
suddenly  appeared  in  Culiacan  with  the  story  of  his  won- 
derful journey  through  the  interior  of  the  continent  from 
Florida  to  northern  Mexico,  the  popular  conclusion  was 
that  in  that  direction  the  Seven  Cities  should  be  sought. 
It  is  astonishing  what  a  part  in  discovery  was  played  by 
legends  and  fables  of  this  kind.  The  empire  of  the  Grand 
Khan  lured  "^on  Columbus,  the  fountain  of  youth  drew 
Ponce  de  Leon,  the  Seven  Cities  were  the  dream  of  Father 
Mark  of  Nizza  and  of  Coronado,  Gran  Ouivira  attracted 
Coronado  and  Oiiate  far  to  the  north.  After  the  Span- 
iards had  become  convinced  that  the  Seven  Cities  were  not 
to  be  found  in  New  Mexico,  the  Gilded  Man,  El  Dorado, 
was  hunted  through  all  South  America.  The  fabled  city 
of  Norumbega  was  sought  for  by  French  and  English  along 
our  northern  Atlantic  seacoast. 

Mendoza  was  viceroy  of  New  Spain  in  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico when  Cabeza  de  Vaca  arrived  from  the  north  in  the 
province.  There  was  at  that  time  in  Mexico  a  Franciscan 
friar  who  had  seen  much  service  in  the  New  World.      He 


\ 


MARK  OF  NIZZA.  5  I 

had  been  with  Pizarro  in  Peru  and  with  Alvarado  in  Guate- 
mala. He  was  a  native  of  Nice,  and  was  called  Father 
Mark  of  Nizza.  Mendoza  chose  him  to  go  and  find  the 
Seven  Cities  in  the  country  whence  Cabeza  de  Vaca  had 
returned.  His  guide  was  to  be  the  negro  Stephen,  com- 
panion of  Cabeza  de  Vaca  in  his  wanderings,  and  some 
Mexican  Indians  were  to  be  his  fellow-travelers.  Mr.  A.  F. 
Bandelier,  in  a  late  work,  "The  Gilded  Man,"  gives  a 
most  minute  and  interesting  description  of  the  long  journey, 
accurately  maps  the  route,  and  identifies  the  spots  named 
in  Father  Mark's  report.  Suffice  it  to  say  here  that  the 
Seven  Cities  of  Cibola  which  he  reached,  or  rather  saw  from 
a  hilltop,  were  the  Zuni  pueblos  of  New  Mexico. 

The  good  monk  has  been  accused  of  exaggeration,  if  not 
of  downright  falsehood,  when  in  his  report  he  compared  the 
cities  of  Cibola  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  and  when  he  stated 
that  the  houses  of  Cibola  were  adorned  with  turquoises  and 
precious  stones.  Now,  as  to  the  first  point,  we  will  do  well 
to  remember  that  the  City  of  Mexico  of  the  year  1539 — the 
.only  one  Father  Mark  had  seen  and  known — had  not  more 
than  one  thousand  inhabitants,  and  consisted  of  a  group  of 
houses  within  a  very  small  space.  As  to  the  second  point, 
it  has  been  ascertained  in  our  days  that  a  custom  formerly 
prevailed  among  the  Zunis  of  decorating  the  thresholds  of 
their  houses  with  green  stones.  The  friar  was  correct  in 
his  main  statements ;  the  exaggeration  was  the  result  of 
subjectivism  ;  it  was  in  the  excited  imagination  of  the  Span- 
iards, who  dreamed  of  finding  in  the  north  the  Mexico  and 
Peru  of  the  south,  and  in  the  light  of  their  dreams  read 
the  friar's  narrative.  He  had  not  found  gold  or  silver,  it 
is  true ;  but  he  had  found  a  fertile  land  and  settled  tribes 
living  in  large  buildings..  So  the  Seven  Cities  of  romance 
were  at  last  discovered.  Images  of  vast  palaces  and  great 
wealth  floated  before  the  eyes  of  his  hearers.     There  was 


52  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  iv, 

no  difficulty  in  finding  men  and  means  for  the  occupation 
and  conquest  of  the  new  country. 

An  expeditionary  corps  of  three  hundred  Spaniards  and 
eight  hundred  Indians  was  easily  raised.  The  command 
was  given  by  the  viceroy  Mendoza  to  Coronado.  For  a 
full  account  of  this  remarkable  expedition  and  a  minute 
identification  of  the  route  we  refer  the  reader  to  Bandelier's 
"  Gilded  Man  "  or  to  H.  H.  Bancroft's  "  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico,"  the  eighteenth  volume  of  his  work.  The  Zuni 
pueblos  were  reached  in  due  time,  and  the  sight  of  them 
brought  to  the  leader  and  his  followers  bitterest  disap- 
pointment, so  far  below  their  expectation  was  the  reality ; 
and  brought  to  poor  Father  Mark  bitterest  reproaches  from 
his  fellow-explorers ;  for  he  was  one  of  Coronado's  follow- 
ers. They  did  not  stop  to  consider  how  far  above  his 
relation  were  their  expectations,  or  how  little  their  expec- 
tations were  warranted  by  his  relation.  Coronado  pushed 
his  researches  as  far  northwest  as  the  Grand  Caiion  of  the 
Colorado  in  Arizona,  and  as  far  northeast  as  the  center  of 
Kansas,  according  to  Bandelier;  as  the  boundary-line  be- 
tween Kansas  and  Nebraska,  according  to  Bancroft.  Find- 
ing the  Seven  Cities  to  be  only  Indian  pueblos,  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  lured  by  another  fable  on  the  authority  of 
one  or  a  few  Indians.  It  was  the  fable  of  Gran  Quivira,  a 
large  and  wealthy  city,  that  drew  him  to  the  northeast  and 
brought  him  out  on  our  great  American  plains.  Quivira 
turned  out  to  be  only  a  group  of  Indian  tepees  inhabited 
by  natives  on  the  lookout  for  buffaloes.  In  the  spring  of 
1542  Coronado  returned  to  Mexico  sick  in  body  and  dis- 
appointed in  hopes.  He  had  found  no  precious  metals,  no 
great  cities,  no  wealthy  kingdoms. 

All  returned  with  him  save  a  fjew,  and  these  had  found 
what  they  came  for.  They  came  not  for  gold,  cities,  and 
kingdoms,  but  for  souls  to  save,  and,  God  willing,  for  the 


MAKTYKLWM   OF  JOHN   OF  PADILLA.  53 

crown  of  martyrdom.  They  found  the  souls  ;  why  go  back  ? 
And  they  found  the  martyrdom  too.  Three  priests,  Fathers 
Mark,  John  of  Padilla,  and  John  of  the  Cross,  and  one  lay 
brother,  Louis,  were  the  ecclesiastical  portion  of  Coronado's 
expedition.  After  Coronado  had  arrived  at  Cibola  he  sent 
back  a  small  guard  to  Mexico  to  bring  to  Mendoza  the  report 
of  his  journey.  Father  Mark  joined  the  returning  guard, 
Bandelier  says  for  reason  of  ill  health,  others  say  to  escape 
from  the  taunts  of  his  companions  and  from  their  attempts 
to  wreak  their  vengeance  on  him  for  his  exaggerated  ac- 
count of  his  previous  journey.  When  Coronado  took  up 
his  homeward  march,  Fathers  John  of  the  Cross  and  John 
of  Padilla  and  lay  brother  Louis  remained  behind  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  the  natives.  Father  John  of  the  Cross  fixed 
his  residence  among  the  Indians  near  the  present  Bernalillo, 
and  lay  brother  Louis  near  by.  Nothing  more  was  ever 
heard  of  them.  We  do  not  know  for  certain,  but  we  may 
well  conjecture  that  they  fell  victims  to  their  zeal. 

With  Father  John  of  Padilla  remained  as  companions 
and  volunteers  for  the  mission  a  Portuguese,  Andres  del 
Campo,  a  mestizo  or  half-breed,  and  two  Indians,  Luke  and 
Sebastian,  who  had  been  adopted  by  the  monks  in  Mexico, 
perhaps  had  become  members  of  the  third  Order  of  St. 
Francis,  but  at  any  rate  were  called  "  donados,"  the  word 
meaning  that  they  had  devoted  their  lives  to  the  service 
of  the  missionaries.  In  addition  to  these  were  two  other 
free  Indians  and  a  negro.  These  men  chose  to  remain  with 
the  friar  and  share  his  fate.  The  field  of  labor  that  John  of 
Padilla  selected  was  Quivira,  whither  he  had  accompanied 
Coronado.  They  reached  the  wigwams  that  bore  that 
name  in  the  summer  months  of  the  year  1542.  The 
Ouiviras  received  him  gladly  and  listened  to  his  teachings. 
His  zeal  thirsted  for  wider  fields.  In  spite  of  the  warnings 
of  those  among  whom  he  dwelt  in  safety,  he  determined 


54  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  iv. 

to  visit  other  tribes.  The  determination  cost  him  his  Hfe. 
He  had  not  journeyed  far  when  a  band  hostile  to  the 
Quiviras  met  him.  Conscious  now  of  the  danger,  and 
knowing  that  resistance  was  useless,  that  flight  was  out  of 
the  question,  trusting  that  one  victim  might  divert  the 
attention  and  cruelty  of  the  enemy  from  the  rest,  Padilla 
ordered  his  companions  to  flee  and  leave  him  alone.  They 
complied  regretfully  and  sorrowfully  with  the  order;  but 
before  losing  sight  of  him  they  saw  him  kneel  to  await  the 
coming  of  the  savages  and  receive  the  death-blow.  They 
made  their  way  back  to  the  Quiviras  and  thence  to  Mexico, 
and  thus  the  story  of  the  death  of  Padilla  has  come  down 
to  us.  Fifty  years  after  the  landing  of  Columbus  the  pro- 
tomartyr  of  the  church  of  the  United  States  fell  in  Kansas, 
about  six  hundred  miles  west  of  the  Mississippi.  At  this 
early  date  the  cross  had  been  carried  by  Catholic  mission- 
aries throughout  the  whole  extent  of  our  Southern  States, 
from  the  Chesapeake,  whither  Ayllon  went  in  1526,  to  the 
Mississippi,  reached  by  De  Soto  in  the  spring  of  1542,  the 
very  year  of  Padilla's  death  ;  and  from  the  Mississippi  to  the 
Colorado  in  northwestern  Arizona,  visited  by  one  of  Coro- 
nado's  captains  in  1540;  and  the  cross  had  had  its  martyr. 
The  story  of  Coronado's  expedition  and  Padilla's  death 
seems  to  have  faded  from  the  memory  of  the  Spaniards  in 
Mexico,  for  no  attempt  was  made  in  the  direction  of  Cibola 
until  the  year  1581,  almost  forty  years  afterward.  Their 
energies  were  spent  in  extending  settlements  in  the  north- 
ern provinces  of  Mexico,  discovering  and  exploiting  mines, 
and  building  cities.  The  most  northern  outpost  in  1581 
was  San  Bartolomeo.  There  lived  a  pious  Franciscan  lay 
brother,  Augustine  Rodriguez.  He  was  seized  with  the 
desire  to  carry  the  gospel  to  the  tribes  of  the  north,  of 
whom  he  heard  much  from  the  surrounding  Indians,  went 
to  Mexico  to  plead  the  cause  of  those  heathen  savages  still 


MORE  MARTYRS.  55 

sitting  in  the  shadow  of  unbehef,  was  heard  favorably,  re- 
ceived as  companions  two  young  fathers,  Francis  Lopez 
and  John  of  St.  Mary,  and  with  them  made  his  way  to  the 
country  of  the  Pueblo  Indians.  They  gave  it  the  name  it 
has  borne  since,  and  now  bears — New  Mexico.  The  mission 
prospered,  and  as  the  work  was  becoming  too  great  for  the 
small  band.  Father  John  was  sent  back  to  Mexico  for  more 
helpers.  On  the  way  he  was  surprised  while  asleep  by 
roving  Indians,  and  was  killed.  Of  the  two  missionaries 
who  were  awaiting  in  New  Mexico  his  return  with  recruits, 
Father  Lopez  was  massacred  by  the  savages  and  buried 
by  his  remaining  companion,  Brother  Rodriguez.  What 
became  of  the  latter  was  for  a  long  time  unknown.  It  was 
only  in  1626  that  light  was  thrown  on  his  fate.  According 
to  Father  Salmeron,  who  was  a  missionary  in  New  Mexico 
at  that  date  and  has  left  his  "  Relaciones,"  Rodriguez  was 
killed  soon  after  the  death  of  Father  Lopez.  The  field  of 
their  labors  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  Albuquerque. 

The  Franciscans  of  Mexico  were  naturally  very  anxious 
about  the  fate  of  their  brethren  who  had  departed  for  the 
north,  and  the  viceroy  deemed  it  proper  that  something 
should  be  done  to  ascertain  what  had  become  of  them  and 
to  help  them  if  still  alive.  A  rich  citizen  of  Mexico,  Don 
Antonio  Espejo,  was  willing  to  undertake  the  hazardous 
venture  at  his  own  expense.  Gathering  together  a  body 
of  fourteen  volunteer  soldiers,  a  few  native  servants,  horses 
and  mules  to  carry  provisions  and  arms,  and  taking  as  com- 
panion the  Franciscan  father  Bernardino  Beltran,  he  started, 
in  1582,  on  an  expedition  which,  according  to  H.  H.  Ban- 
croft, was  productive  of  geographical  results  as  substantial 
as  the  larger  and  more  pompous  journey  of  Coronado.  But 
they  did  not  find  the  three  Franciscan  missionaries  ahve ; 
nor  is  it  known  that  Father  Beltran  did  any  mission  work 
on  this  expedition. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE   SPANISH  OCCUPATION  OF  NEW   MEXICO — THE  RISE 
AND    DECLINE    OF    THE    MISSIONS    (1598-1848). 

Don  Juan  DE  Onate,  in  whose  veins  ran  the  com- 
mingled blood  of  Cortez  and  Montezuma,  obtained  in 
1588  a  royal  patent  to  occupy  and  settle  New  Mexico. 
However,  it  was  ten  years  later  (1 598)  that  he  finally  over- 
came all  the  vexatious  delays  opposed  to  his  project  by 
the  Mexican  authorities,  and  was  allowed  to  start  by  the 
viceroy.  The  expeditionary  corps  was  made  up  of  four 
hundred  settlers  and  their  families,  a  body  of  Spanish  sol- 
diers and  Indian  auxiliaries,  and  horses  and  cattle  of  vari- 
ous kinds.  The  missionary  corps  was  composed  of  seven 
Franciscan  fathers  and  two  lay  brothers  under  the  supe- 
riorship  of  Father  Martinez.  On  the  frontier  of  the  new 
province,  the  banks  of  the  Rio  del  Norte,  solemn  posses- 
sion of  the  country  was  taken  in  the  name  of  Christ  and 
of  the  king  of  Spain,  and  the  first  Spanish  town  of  New 
Mexico,  Real  de  San  Juan,  was  founded  and  dedicated  with 
fitting  religious  and  civil  ceremonies,  thirty-three  years 
after  the  foundation  of  St.  Augustine  in  Florida. 

From  this  center  Father  Martinez  distributed  his  priests 
in  the  country  round  about,  and  the  work  of  the  New 
Mexican  missions  began.  Naturally  the  beginnings  were 
difificult,  and  the  success  was  slow.  In  the  spring  Onate 
sent  back  to  Mexico  a  captain  with  his  report  of  the  oc- 
cupation. Fathers  Salazar  and  Martinez  accompanied  him 
to  make  their  report  to  their  superiors  and  ask  for  an  in- 

56 


DISCOURAGEMENT.  57 

crease  of  missionaries.  Salazar  died  on  the  way,  and 
Martinez,  enfeebled  by  age  and  the  hardships  of  a  long  life 
of  labor  in  America,  was  retained  in  Mexico  and  replaced 
in  the  superiorship  of  the  New  Mexican  missions  by  Father 
John  de  Escalona,  who  departed  from  the  capital  with  six 
or  eight  additional  fathers.  With  them  went  two  hundred 
soldiers  as  reinforcement  for  the  commander,  Oiiate. 

Meanwhile  he  had  moved  his  headquarters  to  a  point 
west  of  the  Rio  Grande,  near  Ojo  Caliente,  where  he 
founded  the  town  of  San  Gabriel.  The  recruits  reached 
this  point  in  October,  1599.  After  their  arrival  Onate 
selected  an  escort  of  eighty  men  to  explore  the  country 
in  the  direction  formerly  followed  by  Coronado.  During 
his  absence  disorder  and  discouragement  fell  upon  those 
he  left  behind  in  San  Gabriel.  The  unfriendly  attitude  of 
the  natives,  caused  by  ill  treatment  and  outrages  on  their 
women  at  the  hands  of  the  idle  Spaniards,  the  scantiness 
of  food,  brought  about  by  prodigal  waste  and  failure  of  the 
crops,  disregard  of  authority,  and  mutiny,  determined  the 
colonists  to  break  up  the  settlement  and  retreat  to  Mexico. 
Even  some  of  the  missionaries,  under  pretext  that  Oiiate, 
so  long  absent,  must  be  lost  and  should  never  return,  joined 
the  ranks  of  the  discontented  and  departed  with  the  larger 
number.  The  superior,  Escalona,  with  a  few  of  the  braver 
Spaniards,  remained  at  the  post.  It  was  well  they  did  so ; 
for  shortly  after  the  desertion  Oiiate  rode  in  with  his  troop, 
sent  in  pursuit  of  the  cowards,  and  what  with  threats  and 
what  with  conciliation,  persuaded  them  to  return. 

The  settlement  being  restored,  the  work  of  the  missions 
was  resumed  with  new  ardor.  Already  large  numbers  of 
Indians  had  embraced  Christianity  and  had  been  baptized. 
By  the  year  1608  the  baptisms  amounted  to  eight  thou.sand, 
and  eight  additional  priests  had  come  from  Mexico  with  a 
new  superior,  Alonso  Peinado.      Santa  Fe  was  founded  in 


58  TJ^E  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

the  year  1605,  ana  became  henceforth  the  center  of  Span- 
ish dominion  and  missions  in  New  Mexico.  Among  the 
missionaries  who  labored  here  at  this  early  period  one  de- 
.serves  special  mention,  Father  Salmeron,  who  in  161 8  took 
up  his  abode  among  the  Jemes  tribe,  composed  a  catechism 
and  other  works  in  their  language,  and  baptized  sixty-five 
hundred  of  them  during  the  eight  years  of  his  ministr3^ 

In  1 62 1  the  missions  of  New  Mexico,  counting  at  that 
time  sixteen  thousand  converts,  were  erected  by  the  Fran- 
ciscan chapter  of  Mexico  into  a  custodia  or  guardianship 
under  the  title  of  the  "  Conversion  of  St.  Paul."  The  first 
custodio  or  guardian  was  Alonso  Benavides,  who  arrived 
from  the  south  the  following  year  (1622)  with  twenty- 
seven  friars.  In  a  short  time  the  number  of  conversions 
grew  rapidly,  so  abundant  was  the  harvest  from  the  blood 
of  the  early  martyrs,  so  fervent  the  zeal  of  the  living. 
The  arduous  and  constant  labors  of  the  missions  thinned 
the  ranks  of  the  laborers  quickly.  But  by  order  of  the  king 
of  Spain,  to  whom  the  lack  of  workmen  and  the  promise 
of  the  harvest  had  been  made  known,  thirty  new  friars  and 
a  number  of  lay  brothers  arrived  in  1628-29.  At  this  time 
Santa  Fe  had  a  population  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  Span- 
iards, seven  hundred  half-breeds,  and  some  Indians.  The 
church  that  Benavides  found  in  the  capital  was  but  a  small 
and  unworthy  hut.  One  of  his  first  cares  was  to  erect  a 
convent  and  a  church,  which  he  describes  as  creditable 
anywhere. 

About  this  time  the  commissary-general  of  the  Francis- 
cans residing  in  Mexico  moved  the  question  of  naming  a 
bishop  for  the  province,  which  up  to  this  date  had  been 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  see  of  Guadalajara.  The 
superior  of  the  missions  was  vicar-general  of  the  bishop, 
commissary  of  the  holy  ofifice,  and  had  from  Leo  X.  and 
Adrian  VI.  the  power  of  administering  confirmation.     Pius 


CANONICAL    CONDITION.  59 

V.  in  1567  had  decided  that  the  missions  and  the  settle- 
ments of  whites  were  full  canonical  parishes  in  the  sense  of 
the  Council  of  Trent.  Here,  unlike  the  missions  of  Florida, 
there  were  no  seculars  in  charge  of  the  whites,  but  all,  Indians, 
and  whites,  were  in  charge  of  the  Franciscans.  In  1620  the 
see  of  Durango  was  erected  by  Paul  V.,  and  henceforth  New 
Mexico  passed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  latter  bishopric. 
In  order  to  corroborate  his  request  for  a  local  bishop,  the 
commissary-general,  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not 
and  never  had  been  on  the  ground,  advanced  exaggerated 
statistics  of  the  Christianity  of  the  province  that  the  real 
facts  do  not  bear  out.  A  safer  authority  to  follow  is 
Benavides,  who  went  in  person  to  Spain  and  made  to  the 
king  a  report  on  the  New  Mexican  missions,  dated  Madrid, 
1630.  Eighty  thousand  natives  had  been  baptized  since 
the  beginning  of  evangelization  ;  of  these  about  thirty-five 
thousand  were  living,  at  the  time  of  the  report,  in  ninety 
pueblos,  grouped  about  twenty-five  missions  or  convcntos, 
each  pueblo  having  its  church  or  chapel.^  The  missions  or 
conventos  must  be  understood  as  the  residences  of  mission- 
aries. Each  residence  had  in  charge  one  or  more  pueblos 
in  its  neighborhood. 

During  all  these   years  new  Spanish  settlements  were 

1  The  number  given  here  is  an  average  of  my  own.  Accounts  vary.  Ac- 
cording to  H.  H.  Bancroft,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  162,  the  report  of  Benavides  shows 
that  there  were  fifty  friars  serving  sixty  thousand  Christianized  natives  in 
ninety  pueblos,  grouped  around  twenty-five  conventos.  Shea,  "  The  Catholic 
Church  in  Colonial  Days,"  p.  201,  states  :  "  In  these  missions  Father  Bena- 
vides assures  us  that  eighty  thousand  had  been  baptized,  and  that  in  the  terri- 
tory of  New  Mexico  there  were  forty-three  churches. "  Again  Bancroft,  p.  1 72, 
says  :  "  I  close  this  chapter  with  a  note  from  Vetancour's  standard  chronicle  of 
the  Franciscans,  written  about  1691,  but  showing  the  missions  as  they  existed 
just  before  the  revolt  of  1680."  There  was  at  that  time  a  total  Christian  pop- 
ulation of  twenty-four  thousand,  of  whom  twenty-four  hundred  were  Spaniards. 
According  to  Bandelier,  the  population  of  New  Mexico  at  the  time  of  the  Span- 
ish occupation  was  no  more  than  forty  thousand,  and  in  the  year  of  tlie  rebellion, 
1680,  no  more  than  thirty  thousand.  Amid  all  these  variations  I  feel  safe 
enough  in  adopting  the  number  thirty-five  thousand ;  that  is  to  say,  the  whole 
population  was  reckoned  by  the  missionaries  as  being  within  the  church. 


6o  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

being  founded  in  the  province.  Spaniards,  half-breeds,  and 
Catholic  Indians  from  the  mother  colony  of  Mexico  were  in 
constant  intercourse  with  the  New  Mexican  tribes ;  took 
lands  among  them,  formed  centers  of  trade,  and  married  into 
them;  not  a  little  Castilian  and  Aztec  blood  commingled 
with  that  of  the  Pueblo  Indians.  For  instance,  a  number 
of  Tlascalan  Indians  came  to  Santa  Fe,  established  a  quarter 
there  and  built  a  church  for  their  special  use — San  Miguel 
de  los  Tlascaltecos.  With  those  colonists  came  into  the 
New  Mexican  legends  and  traditions  traces  of  Tenoctitlan's 
vanished  fame,  of  Aztec  story,  of  Montezuma  and  his  glory. 
This  gave  rise  to  the  theory  adopted  by  some  students  of 
ethnology  that  the  Aztecs  had  originally  emigrated  from  the 
parent  Pueblo  tribes  of  New  Mexico,  and  had  carried  away 
with  them  from  the  frowning  cliffs  and  mesas  and  fortresses 
of  the  north  the  traditions  they  immortalized  in  the  valley 
of  Mexico.  In  reality  the  connection  was  the  other  way. 
Not  a  few  historical  conclusions  rest  on  just  such  a  wrong 
method  of  induction. 

From  1650  to  1680  is  the  palmy  period  of  the  New 
Mexican  missions.  As  many  as  sixty  members  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis  at  one  time  were  in  the  field,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  no  storm  could  uproot  from  the  soil  the  great 
tree  of  Catholicity  which  they  had  planted,  watered  with 
their  blood,  and  tended  with  their  labors.  Yet  grievous 
dangers,  even  in  that  period  of  prosperity,  were  on  the 
horizon,  threatening  to  overwhelm  the  glorious  work  with 
ruin.  Of  those  dangers  some  lay  within  the  New  Mexican 
church  and  some  without. 

No  church  has  lasted  long  that  remained  in  the  mission 
state,  deprived  of  the  church's  normal  apostolic  organiza- 
tion, bishop,  and  diocesan  clergy.  Regulars  are  the  provi- 
dential initiators  and  creators  of  the  church  in  pagan  lands 
from  the  days  of  St.  Benedict  down  to  our  own  time  ;  but 


CHURCH  AND   STATE.  6l 

they  are  not  the  divinely  appointed  maintainers  and  pre- 
servers of  the  church.  They  blaze  the  way  and  make  the 
road  for  the  hierarchy  and  the  diocesan  army.  The  his- 
tory of  missions  proves  this  truth  abundantly.  Now  New 
Mexico  not  only  had  no  resident  bishop,  but  was  only 
nominally  under  the  jurisdiction  of  one  far  distant.  We 
do  not  read  that  he  had  attempted  to  make  his  nominal 
jurisdiction  real,  and  we  shall  see  a  little  later  on  that  when 
he  did  make  the  attempt,  he  met  with  violent  opposition 
from  the  Franciscans.  This  condition  of  things  was  a 
source  of  weakness  and  a  danger. 

The  king  of  Spain,  and  the  viceroy  of  Mexico,  acting 
under  orders  of  the  king,  deserve  unstinted  praise  for  the 
protecti'on  they  always  gave  to  the  work  of  the  church 
among  the  American  natives  conquered  by  Spanish  arms. 
More  than  protection  did  Spain  give — money  and  means 
in  abundance  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  furtherance  of 
his  kingdom  among  the  benighted  pagans  of  the  New 
World.  Her  flag  was  in  the  breeze  wherever  the  cross 
was  raised,  her  helmeted  soldier  was  to  be  found  at  the 
side  of  her  missionary.  The  Spanish  nation  ever  beheved 
that  it  had  a  duty  to  God  and  man  to  perform  in  the 
dominions  given  it  by  Providence  ;  and  nobly,  generously, 
with  such  means  and  in  such  way  it  knew  and  thought 
proper,  did  it  fulfill  the  duty.  But  such  a  close  union  of 
church  and  state,  more  than  any  other  relation  we  can 
imagine,  demands  to  be  carried  out  with  prudence,  loyalty, 
and  mutual  respect,  in  order  that  the  agents  of  both  be  in- 
spired and  guided  by  the  true  spirit  of  the  church  and  the 
true  spirit  of  a  Christian  nation. 

Precisely  in  the  intermediate  agencies  is  the  fatal  rock 
on  which  that  ideal  relation  finds  its  wrecking.  Perfect 
churchmen  and  perfect  statesmen  are  rare ;  so  rare  that  a 
Leo  and  a  Charlemagne  are  as  an  oasis  in  history.    There 


62  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

were  dissensions,  frequent  and  bitter,  in  Santa  Fe,  between 
the  civil  power,  the  governor,  and  the  ecclesiastical  power, 
the  father  guardian,  superior  of  the  missions.  For  instance, 
in  1664  Governor  Penalosa  arrested  and  imprisoned  the 
superior,  was  summoned  to  Mexico  before  the  Inquisition 
for  his  act,  and  was  condemned  to  make  reparation.  Such 
dissensions  were  a  danger,  for  they  brought  contempt  on 
both  powers  in  the  eyes  of  the  Indians,  with  whom  medi- 
cine-man and  cacique  were  sacred.  I  need  scarcely  add 
that  tlie  Spanish  settlers  were  not  always  models  of  the 
Christian  morality  they  professed.  Indians,  as  other  men 
,  more  civilized,  choose  to  forget  the  frailty  of  man,  and,  in 
matters  of  religion,  judge  the  tree  by  its  fruit.  These  dan- 
gers were  internal  to  the  New  Mexican  church. 

Without  the  church  one  danger  was  to  be  found  in  the 
neighboring  tribes  of  savages;  the  other  lurked  amid  the 
Pueblo  Indians  themselves.  The  savage  tribes  from  whose 
attacks  the  great  communal  houses  of  the  semicivilized 
Pueblo  Indians,  with  their  strong  high  walls,  were  fortresses 
and  places  of  refuge  are  classed  under  the  general  name  of 
Apaches.  H.  H.  Bancroft  ^  enumerates  the  many  divisions 
of  this  people.  Prominent  among  them  are  tribes  that  until 
late  times  were  the  terror  of  the  southwestern  territories — 
the  Comanches,  the  Yutes,  the  Navajos,  the  Mojaves,  the 
Yumas.  Their  occupation  was  to  pounce  upon  the  quiet 
pueblos  and  convcntos,  carry  off  what  they  could,  and 
retreat  into  the  impregnable  gorges  and  canons,  or  the 
still  more  impregnable  cliffs  of  the  mountainous  districts. 
These  wild  thieves  were  the  dread  of  the  Christian  mis- 
sions. Many  the  church  and  convent  they  burned  to  the 
ground,  many  the  Christian  Indian  they  carried  into  cap- 
tivity. The  missionaries  lived  in  constant  fear  of  those 
Bedouins  of  the  West. 

1   "  The  Native  Races,"  vol.  i.,  chap.  v. 


INDIAN  PAGANISM.  63 

But  the  greatest  danger  to  the  missions  lay  in  the  New 
Mexican  converts  themseh^es.  Though  the  greater  num- 
ber were  Christians,  and  the  majority  of  the  Christians 
were  baptized  members  of  the  church,  yet  not  all  realized 
in  their  lives  the  teachings  of  the  gospel.  Many  were  in 
reality  pagans,  who  clung  to  their  old  superstitions  and  re- 
ligious rites  with  the  greater  tenacity  that  so  many  of  their 
fellow-tribesmen  had  renounced  them,  and  that  they  were 
driven  to  secrecy  to  keep  up  the  fierce  religion  of  their 
forefathers.  The  paganism  and  its  rites  were  kept  alive  and 
escaped  the  watchfulness  of  the  authorities  by  two  means : 
secret  societies  under  the  lead  of  medicine-men,  and  secret 
places  of  meeting.  This  very  secrecy  and  impunity  were 
strong  temptations  which  even  the  better  Christians  could 
not  resist.  And  so,  even  among  the  members  of  the  church, 
beneath  the  outward  appearances  of  Christian  living  and 
conduct  the  old  leaven  was  not  dead,  but  was  at  work  ready 
to  break  forth  in  favorable  circumstances. 

The  place  in  which  the  Indians  met  for  their  heathen 
ceremonies  was  the  estufa,  or  the  sweat-house.  Every 
village  had  from  one  to  six  of  these  places.  It  was  a 
large  subterranean  room,  at  once  bath-house,  town-house, 
council  chamber,  club-room,  and  temple.  It  was  situated 
either  in  the  great  building  or  underground  in  the  court- 
yard betAveen  the  buildings.  At  Jemez  the  estufa  is  one 
story,  twenty-five  feet  wide  and  thirty  feet  high.  The  ruins 
of  Chettro  Kettle  contain  six  estufas,  each  two  or  three 
stories  in  height.  At  Bonito  are  estufas  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  feet  in  circumference.  Here  the  chiefs  met 
for  secret  council  and  worship  of  the  gods. 

It  is  from  this  cryptopaganism  that  came  the  ruin  of  the 
missions  in  1680.  No  doubt  the  love  of  liberty,  the  desire 
to  shake  off  the  hated  yoke  of  the  Spanish  master,  had 
much  to  do  with  the  rebellion ;  but  it  was  founded  more 


64  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

largely  still  on  religious  grounds.  The  Pueblo  Indians, 
more  than  the  other  American  tribes,  were  attached  to 
their  aboriginal  religion,  and  had  secretly  continued  its 
practice.  Friars  and  governors  had  done  their  best  to 
stamp  out  every  vestige  of  it,  using  to  some  extent  physi- 
cal punishment  for  alleged  sorcery  and  communion  with 
the  devil,  as  also  for  plotting  with  the  Apaches ;  for  it  is 
not  to  be  denied  that  the  haters  of  Christianity  were  will- 
ing to  ally  themselves  with  their  inveterate  foes  to  encom- 
pass its  destruction.  In  1680,  and  for  a  few  years  preced- 
ing, the  whole  province  was  covered  with  a  network  of 
hidden  conspiracy. 

Some  faithful  Indians  gave  repeated  warnings  to  the* 
missionaries,  and  they  in  turn  warned  the  governor.  He 
was  slow  to  believe,  and,  at  the  first  evidences  that  he  was 
taking  precautions,  the  insurrection  broke  out  at  once  on 
all  sides.  It  was  the  plan  of  the  New  Mexicans  to  exter- 
minate the  Spaniards,  and  none  was  spared  save  the  most 
beautiful  of  the  women  and  girls,  reserved  for  a  worse  fate 
than  death.  Twenty-one  missionaries  and  four  hundred 
Spaniards  fell  in  the  first  onslaught.  Those  who  could 
escape  sought  refuge  in  Santa  Fe,  where  they  were  be- 
sieged during  five  days  by  thousands  of  infuriated  Indians. 
The  brave  governor,  Otermin,  seeing  no  way  to  salvation 
but  a  sortie  and  a  retreat  to  the  Mexican  frontier,  gathered 
in  a  body  the  one  thousand  Spaniards  crouching  behind  the 
walls,  and  at  their  head  led  them  forth  to  whatever  fate 
awaited  them.  Of  the  one  thousand  scarcely  one  hundred 
and  fifty  were  armed.  Fortunately  the  Indians  let  them  pass 
on  without  an  attack,  perhaps  from  fear  of  Spanish  valor,  or 
from  hope  of  being  able  to  make  short  work  of  them  after 
a  few  days'  marcli  should  have  weakened  them,  or  from 
unwillingness  to  shed  more  blood  now  that  they  beheld 


DESTRUCTION  OF   THE  MISSIONS  65 

their  wish  fulfilled — the  departure  from  their  land  of  the 
detested  conquerors. 

In  a  few  weeks  no  Spaniard  was  in  New  Mexico  north 
of  El  Paso.  Christianity  and  civilization  were  swept  away 
at  one  blow ;  churches  and  convents  were  burned  and  razed 
to  the  ground ;  sacred  vessels  were  destroyed  or  carried  off 
and  profaned.  The  leader  of  the  rebellion,  a  great  medi- 
cine-man, Pope  by  name,  proceeded  to  play,  all  unwittingly, 
the  part  of  Antichrist.  He  forbade  the  naming  of  Jesus, 
Mary,  and  the  saints,  decreed  that  men  should  put  away 
their  legitimate  wives  and  take  others  to  their  liking,  that 
none  should  wear  crosses  or  rosaries,  that  all  be  cleansed 
of  baptism  by  the  use  of  water  and  soapweed,  that  the 
baptismal  names  be  dropped,  that  the  estufas  be  reopened 
for  the  old  ceremonies,  that  the  Spanish  language  be  no 
longer  used,  and  that  none  but  native  crops  be  cultivated 
and  raised.  History  cannot  show  a  more  consummate 
persecutor,  small  as  is  the  scale  on  which  he  worked.  It 
reminds  one,  si  parva  licet  coniponere  inagnis,  of  Diocletian 
and  his  Nomine  Christiano  dclcto. 

All  went  well  while  the  excitement  of  the  change  lasted. 
But  punishment  soon  overtook  the  renegade  nation,  as, 
indeed,  some  of  the  missionaries,  slowly  dying  amid  the 
tortures  only  Indian  cruelty  can  invent,  had  predicted. 
Pope  became  a  tyrant  whose  small  finger  lay  heavier  than 
the  arm  of  Spain.  Civil  discords  and  bitter  wars  followed 
between  the  tribes.  The  Apaches  saw  their  chance  and 
came  down  on  them  in  the  midst  of  their  dissensions.  Some 
of  the  tribes  abandoned  their  former  homes  and  emigrated 
elsewhere.  Nature  itself  took  up  arms  against  them;  the 
streams  ran  dry  ;  irrigation,  without  which  there  can  be 
no  cultivation  in  that  country,  was  neglected.  Drought 
brought  on  failure  of  crops  and  famine.    The  great  Pueblo 


66  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

nation,  so  prosperous  under  the  flag  of  Spain,  broke  to 
pieces ;  tribes  disappeared,  others  were  reduced.  Many  of 
the  ruins  that  now  cover  the  land  date  from  this  period,  and 
barbarism  darker  than  that  of  the  aboriginal  times  seemed 
to  settle  on  the  unfortunate  apostates.  Meanwhile  the  ref- 
ugee soldiers  of  Spain  and  of  the  cross  gathered  on  the 
frontier  at  El  Paso,  awaiting  the  opportunity  to  return,  in 
the  hope  that  the  natives,  prompted  to  revolt  and  apostasy 
by  the  devil  and  a  few  sorcerers,  would  soon  see  the  error 
of  their  ways  and  be  eager  for  pardon  and  peace. 

The  period  of  growth  and  prosperity  since  Oiiate's  con- 
quest was  of  eighty-two  years' duration  (i  598-1 680).  Then 
followed  the  rebellion,  and  twelve  years  of  retreat  at  El 
Paso  on  the  part  of  the  Spaniards,  of  suffering  and  disorder 
on  the  part  of  the  Indians  (1680-92).  Then  came  the  re- 
conquest  and  restoration,  and  a  period  of  tranquillity  for 
the  Christian  missions  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  yeans,  from 
1692  to  1846,  when  New  Mexico  ceased  to  be  Spanish,  be- 
came American,  and  entered  into  the  church  of  the  United 
States.  We  now  enter  on  a  brief  study  of  this  latter  period. 
The  sources  and  authorities  are  not  so  abundant  as  for  the 
former,  nor  did  the  missions  attain  the  prosperity  and  num- 
bers of  that  period. 

To  such  a  state  of  weakness  had  the  New  Mexican 
Indians  come  that  the  reconquest  was  an  easy  affair.  In 
August,  1692,  the  new  governor,  De  Vargas,  set  out  from 
El  Paso  with  sixty  Spanish  soldiers,  one  hundred  Indian 
auxiliaries,  and  three  missionaries.  Santa  Fe  was  occupied 
by  a  large  body  of  the  rebels.  At  first  they  made  a  show 
of  resistance ;  but,  being  assured  of  pardon  on  condition  of 
returning  to  the  church,  they  yielded,  were  absolved  from 
apostasy,  and  their  children  born  during  the  rebellion  were 
baptized.  This  one  instance  may  stand  for  what  happened 
at  all  the  pueblos  reached  during  the  expedition.     On  Octo- 


RECONQUEST.  67 

ber  1 6th  of  that  year  De  Vargas  reported  to  the  viceroy 
that  he  had  reconquered  all  the  Pueblos  for  thirty-six 
leagues  around  the  capital,  and  that  one  thousand  children 
born  in  rebellion  had  been  baptized.  A  month  later  other 
Pueblos  submitted  on  the  same  terms.  At  Zuni  a  fact  was 
discovered  that  shows  that  all  faith  had  not  died  out  during 
the  twelve  years  of  revolt,  but  that  some  Indians  remained 
secretly  faithful.  Here  the  sacred  vessels  had  been  rever- 
entially saved  and  preserved,  and  candles  were  found  burn- 
ing on  an  altar  in  a  hidden  room.  By  the  month  of  De- 
cember De  Vargas  returned  to  EJ  Paso.  He  did  not  feel 
safe  with  the  small  force  at  his  command,  or  able  to  hold 
the  ground  he  had  gained  ;  nor  could  the  submission  of  the 
tribes  be  called  anything  else  than  a  mere  formahty  so  long 
as  the  Spaniards  did  not  remain  in  the  country. 

One  year  after  (October,  1693)  he  set  out  from  El  Paso 
with  one  hundred  soldiers,  seven  hundred  settlers,  and 
seventeen  Franciscan  friars.  This  time  he  had  to  storm 
the  capital  and  drive  out  the  Indian  occupants  by  force  of 
arms  and  with  much  bloodshed.  The  year  was  spent  in 
mihtary  expeditions  in  all  directions  to  bring  the  savages 
to  submission.  It  was  only  by  the  end  of  1694  that  De 
Vargas  was  able  to  notify  the  superior  of  the  missions  that 
he  might  with  safety  distribute  the  missionaries  among  the 
Pueblos  and  once  more  set  them  to  work.  Churches  and 
convents  had  to  be  rebuilt,  the  missionaries  meanwhile 
using  temporary  quarters.  The  natives  had  finally  made 
up  their  minds  to  submit  to  the  inevitable  until  a  more 
favorable  opportunity  should  present  itself.  The  mission- 
aries were  well  aware  of  this  suppressed  feeling.  In  the 
spring  of  1696  the  superior  warned  the  governor,  called  his 
attention  to  the  defenseless  condition  of  the  missions,  and 
asked  for  details  of  guards.  But,  believing  that  the  natives 
had  submitted  in  good  faith,  and  that  the  suspicions  and 


68  THE  ROMAN  CA  TBOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

fears  of  the  custodio  were  based  on  idle  rumors,  the  gover- 
nor took  no  precaution,  and  sarcastically  advised  the  fathers 
whom  fear  should  overcome  to  seek  refuge  in  safe  places 
among  the  Spanish  settlers. 

The  insurrection  did  come.  Six  tribes  rose,  killed  five 
missionaries,  some  Spaniards,  and  fled  to  the  mountains. 
Then  followed,  in  the  last  year  of  De  Vargas's  governorship 
and  the  first  years  of  his  successor's  term  (Cubero)  a  suc- 
cession of  military  expeditions  to  reduce  the  rebels,  during 
which  the  work  of  the  missions  was  more  or  less  at  a  stand- 
still. It  was  only  in  the. year  1700  that  the  submission  of 
New  Mexico  may  be  said  to  have  become  permanent.  The 
natives  were  too  few  and  weak,  the  Spanish  and  Mexican 
settlers  too  numerous,  for  any  successful  movement  of 
revolt.  Past  experience  had  taught  the  civil  and  eccle- 
siastical powers  to  live  in  peace ;  the  Apaches,  no  less  than 
the  Pueblo  Indians,  had  suffered  from  the  trials  and  strug- 
gles of  the  last  twenty  years,  and  were  held  in  check  by  the 
increased  Spanish  power;  the  heathenish  rites  and  secret 
ceremonies  of  the  estufas  were  firmly  held  in  abeyance  by 
the  combined  watchfulness  and  action  of  the  custodio  and 
the  governor,  though  here,  as  elsewhere,  eternal  vigilance 
was  a  necessity,  and  when  the  vigilance  relaxed  the  ab- 
original superstition  would  break  out  fitfully  among  the 
tribes. 

One  tribe  there  was,  the  powerful  Moqui  in  Arizona, 
that  stood  out  from  the  general  submission,  and  refused  to 
come  back  to  the  Christian  faith.  In  October,  1 700,  they 
proposed  to  the  governor  this  treaty  of  peace,  that  each 
nation,  Spanish  and  Moqui,  should  retain  its  own  religion. 
But  Cubero  could  allow  peace  but  on  condition  of  return 
to  Christianity.  Then  the  Moqui  offered  a  compromise, 
that  the  missionaries  should  make  among  them  no  perma- 
nent stay,  but  visit  each  one  of  their  pueblos  for  six  years 


OPPOSITION   TO    THE  BISHOP.  69 

only.  Naturally  this  was  rejected  as  indignantly  as  the 
former  proposition.  War  was  made  at  intervals  on  the  au- 
dacious tribe,  but  they  held  their  forts  and  their  old  religion. 
The  example,  'the  success,  and  the  counsels  of  the  Moqui 
excited  the  Zunis  to  the  same  line  of  conduct,  and  it  may 
be  said  that  Christianity  never  regained  over  them,  after 
the  insurrection  of  1680,  the  sway  it  had  before.  Thus  the 
two  most  powerful  tribes  of  the  country  were  lost  to  the 
church,  the  Moqui  entirely,  the  Zunis  at  least  partially. 

The  archive  record  for  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  meager  and  fragmentary.  The  succession  of 
governors,  an  occasional  political  controversy,  periodical 
renewals  of  efiforts  to  bring  back  the  Moqui  to  the  gospel, 
some  not  very  important  expeditions  into  the  plains  or  the 
mountains,  rare  intercourse  with  the  Texan  establishments, 
fears  of  French  and  English  encroachments,  a  few  reports 
of  mission  progress  or  decadence,  make  up  the  annals  of 
this  period. 

Of  these  latter  the  most  important  is  the  account  of  a 
visitation  of  the  missions  by  the  Bishop  of  Durango,  Rt. 
Rev.  Benedict  Crespo,  in  i  725.  At  El  Paso  and  Santa  Fe, 
Spanish  settlements,  he  exercised  his  functions  and  ad- 
ministered confirmation  without  any  opposition.  But  when 
he  would  extend  his  offices  to  the  Pueblo  missions,  the  friars 
and  their  superior,  under  instructions  from  headquarters  in 
Mexico,  objected.  The  bishop  appointed  an  ecclesiastical 
judge  to  reside  in  the  province  and  to  take  cognizance  in 
his  name  of  ecclesiastical  afifairs  ;  again  objection  was  made, 
and  the  jurisdiction  of  the  delegated  judge  was  only  par- 
tially recognized.  Thereupon  the  bishop,  in  order  to  com- 
pel recognition  of  his  episcopal  rights,  instituted  proceedings 
against  the  Franciscan  superiors  in  Mexico  under  whose 
order  those  of  New  Mexico  were  opposing  him. 

At  the  same  time  he  preferred  grave  charges  against  the 


70  THE  ROMAN  CA  TIJOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

missionaries,  and  chiefly  that  they  did  not  learn  the  native 
languages ;  that  the  Indians,  rather  than  confess  through 
an  interpreter,  did  not  confess  at  all,  except  at  the  point 
of  death ;  that  the  failure  to  reconvert  the  Moqui  was  the 
fault  of  the  missionaries  ;  that  some  of  them  neglected  their 
duties  and  others  caused  scandal  by  their  conduct ;  that 
the  tithes  were  not  properly  collected  or  expended.  These 
charges,  if  true,  prove  how  absolutely  imperative  was  the 
need  of  a  resident  bishop  and  a  diocesan  native  clergy  in 
New  Mexico.  The  Christian  church  had  been  in  existence 
there  a  century  and  a  half,  but  no  effort  seems  to  have  been 
made  to  recruit  its  clergy  from  the  native  population;  the 
Franciscans  were  all  imported  from  Mexico,  and  were,  for 
the  most  part,  born  in  Spain. 

The  charges  were  supported  by  the  sworn  testimony  of 
twenty-four  prominent  officials  and  residents,  themselves 
Spaniards.  Of  course  the  missionaries  denied  the  charges, 
and  supported  the  denial  by  the  sworn  testimony  of  other 
officials  and  Spanish  colonists.  The  controversy  was  re- 
ferred to  the  court  of  Spain.  Pending  the  examination,  a 
royal  order  sustained  th^  rights  of  the  bishop.  We  have 
no  evidence  that  a  contrary  decision  was  ever  reached  or 
published.  The  successor  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Benedict  Crespo 
in  the  see  of  Durango,  Bishop  Martin  de  Elizacoechea, 
made  a  visitation  of  New  Mexico  in  1737,  seemingly  with- 
out any  opposition.  A  record  of  his  visit  is  graven  on  In- 
scription Rock,  near  Rio  Zuni.  It  runs  :  "  On  the  28th  day 
of  September,  1737,  The  Most  Illustrious  Dr.  Don  Martin 
Elizacoechea,  Bishop  of  Durango,  arrived  here,  and  on  the 
29th  he  proceeded  to  Zuni."  Beyond  this  we  have  no 
account  of  the  details  of  the  visitation. 

Three  authorities  of  this  period — viz.,  Villasenor's  "  Tea- 
tro-Mexicano,"  published  in  1748,  and  reproduced  in 
"  Spanish  Empire  in  America,"  London,  1847  ;  Manchero's 


S/GA^S   OF  DECLINE.  7  I 

manuscript  Report  of  1744;  and  Bonilla's  "  Apuntes,"  also 
in  manuscript — give  some  statistics  and  general  informa- 
tion as  to  the  condition  of  New  Mexico  at  the  time.  The 
Spanish  population  was  3779,  distributed  between  the 
following  towns :  Santa  Fe,  Santa  Cruz  de  la  Canada, 
Albuquerque,  Concepcion  or  Fuenclara;  and  the  follow- 
ing ranchos :  Chama,  Santa  Rosa,  Abiquiu,  Ojo  Caliente, 
Soldedad,  Embudo,  Bocas,  Alameda.  The  number  of 
Christian  Indians  was  12,142,  living  in  the  following  mis- 
sions, each  mission  having  one  resident  missionary :  Taos, 
Jicarilla,  Picuries,  St.  Juan,  Santa  Cruz,  St.  Ildefonso,  Santa 
Clara,  Tesuque  and  Pajuaque,  Nambe,  Pacos,  Galisteo, 
Cochiti,  Santo  Domingo,  St.  Felipe,  Jemes,  Santa  Anna, 
Cia,  Laguna,  Acoma,  Zuni,  Isleta,  Sandia. 

The  sources  for  the  history  of  the  missions  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century  are  more  abundant,  but  they 
deal  with  details  so  minute  that  they  are  of  small  value  for 
a  general  account  such  as  I  intend  making.  Yet  they 
throw  some  light  on  the  mission  system,  the  condition  of 
.the  Pueblo  Indians  and  the  Franciscan  friars.  In  the  year 
1760  Bishop  Tamaron  of  Durango  made  a  visit  to  the 
province  and  met  with  no  opposition.  He  confirmed  11,271 
persons.  This  large  number  of  confirmations  in  a  popula- 
tion of  12,142  goes  to  show  that  the  very  great  majority 
of  Christian  Indians  had  never  been  confirmed,  even  sup- 
posing that  many  of  the  confirmed  were  Mexicans.  About 
1780  famine  and  pestilence  swept  the  Moqui  pueblos.  In 
1775  they  contained  7494  souls;  disease  reduced  them  to 
798  before  the  end  of  the  century.  A  few  among  them 
thought  this  fearful  decimation  a  judgment  of  God  for  their 
obstinacy  in  apostasy  ;  some  thirty  families  went  over  to  the 
Spanish  settlements  and  to  Christianity  ;  but  the  remainder 
declared  that  if  annihilation  of  their  race  was  to  come,  they 
preferred  to  die  in  their  old  home  and  faith.     At  the  same 


*]1  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  V. 

time  smallpox  carried  off  5100  Indians  of  the  mission 
pueblos. 

In  addition  to  those  physical  evils  there  were  others, 
which  Padre  Juan  Agustin  Morfi,  not  a  resident  of  New 
Mexico,  has  made  known  in  a  manuscript  document.  The 
evils  he  mentions  are  the  lack  of  order  in  the  Spanish  set- 
tlements, their  houses  being  scattered,  the  settlers  being 
beyond  the  reach  of  law  and  religion  and  exposed  to  the 
raids  of  Indians ;  a  vicious  system  of  trade  and  dearth  of 
money ;  the  free  admission  of  Spaniards  in  Indian  pueblos, 
the  result  being  that  these  adventurers  put  the  Indians  into 
debt  and  practically  make  them  slaves  or  drive  them  to  the 
pagan  tribes ;  and  the  oppressive  tyranny  of  the  Spanish  offi- 
cials. Allowing  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  his  special 
pleading,  Padre  Morfi  declares  that  the  New  Mexicans  are 
much  worse  off  than  they  were  before  the  coming  of  the 
Spaniards,  or  than  the  Moqui,  who  have  maintained  their 
independence.     This  is  too  severe. 

A  minute  study  of  all  the  sources  at  hand  goes  to  show 
that  the  missionaries  could  not  be  charged  with  cruel  treat- 
ment of  the  natives  nor  with  substituting  trading  to  their 
spiritual  duties.  But  the  accusation  made  against  them 
at  a  former  date  stands  also  at  this  time,  viz.,  that  they 
neglected  to  learn  the  native  languages  and  use  them  in 
the  instruction  of  the  Indians.  Bishop  Tamaron,  in  his 
visit  of  1 760,  administered  severe  rebuke  on  this  score.  He 
offered  to  print  at  his  expense  manuals  of  prayers  in  the 
native  languages,  if' the  friars  would  write  them.  Some 
promises  were  made,  but  no  practical  result  came  of  them. 
It  was  a  mistake,  committed  chiefly  by  the  civil  masters  of 
New  Mexico,  aiid  by  them  forced  on  the  missionaries,  to 
ignore  the  vernacular  dialects  and  impose  on  the  Indians 
the  Spanish  tongue.  This  policy  had  been  successful  in 
Mexico,  and,  not  foreseeing  that  they  should  ever  lose 


REPORTS   OF  DECADENCE.  ^3 

New  Mexico,  the  Spanish  conquerors  beheved  that  with 
time  they  could  make  the  same  policy  successful  there 
also.  We  can  see  how  this  hope  justified  them  in  their 
own  eyes ;  but  meanwhile  the  New  Mexicans  learned  to 
hate  the  faith  that  came  to  them  in  a  foreign  garb,  and 
were  Christians  only  in  appearance  and  name,  since  they 
could  not  understand  its  teachings  sufiEiciently.  Yet  they 
loved  the  padre,  so  different  from  the  other  Spaniards,  for 
he  was  kind-hearted,  a  friend  of  his  flock,  spending  much 
of  the  salary  the  government  gave  him  on  them  and  their 
churches. 

The  statistics  for  the  end  of  the  century  show  a  de- 
cadence among  the  Indians.  Official  reports  of  1 760  show 
that  the  number  of  the  Spaniards  had  increased  to  7666; 
that  of  the  Indians  had  decreased  to  9104.  In  the  final 
decade  of  the  century  the  Spanish  population  was  18,826, 
the  Indian  population,  9732.  There  were  eighteen  missions 
and  twenty-four  missionaries. 

The  nineteenth  century  opened  unfavorably  for  Spain. 
Bonaparte  forced  the  abdication  of  the  king  and  put  his 
brother  Joseph  on  the  Spanish  throne.  Confusion  pre- 
vailed ;  religion  suffered  in  all  the  American  colonies  of 
Spain. 

For  the  history  of  New  Mexico  during  the  first  quarter 
of  the  present  century  the  chief  authorities  are  the  "  Ex- 
posicion  Sucinta  "  (Cadiz,  1820),  a  report  of  Pedro  Bautista 
Pino,  first  deputy  from  New  Mexico  to  the  Spanish  Cortes  ; 
and  the  "  Accounts  of  Travels  of  Zebulon  M.  Pike,"  a  lieu- 
tenant of  the  United  States  army  commissioned  to  explore 
the  countries  of  the  Red  and  Arkansas  rivers,  and  arrested 
by  the  Spanish  authorities  as  trespassing  on  their  territory. 
Very  little,  however,  can  be  gleaned  from  them  regarding 
the  missions.  Pino  solicited  from  the  Cortes  the  establish- 
ment of  a  bishopric  at  Santa  Fe,  with  a  college  and  a  system 


74  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  v. 

of  schools.  The  order  was  given  for  the  bishopric,  though 
it  was  never  executed.  However,  diocesan  priests  were 
introduced  to  take  charge  of  the  Mexican  settlements  in 
spite  of  the  protest  of  the  Franciscans,  and  the  vicars- 
general  of  the  Bishops  of  Durango  were  doing  their  best 
to  arrest  the  decay  of  religion.  The  political  disorders  and 
revolutions  of  the  times  in  Spain,  Mexico,  and  the  New 
Mexican  colony  counteracted  all  their  endeavors.  Relig- 
ious decadence  set  in.  The  church  of  New  Mexico  had 
leaned  so  long  on  the  arm  of  the  state  that  it  knew  not  how 
to  stand  and  walk  alone  when  the  support  gave  way. 

In  1 82 1  Mexico  became  independent  of  Spain,  and  when 
Iturbide  fell  proclaimed  itself  a  republic.  The  colony  New 
Mexico  accepted  the  fortunes  of  the  parent  colony.  In 
January,  1822,  its  republican  birth  was  celebrated  in  Santa 
Fe  with  great  festivity.  During  this  period  some  schools 
were  established,  the  first  printing-press  was  introduced, 
and  the  first  Mexican  newspaper  was  published  in  1835 — 
the  "  Crepusculo,"  the  editor  being  Padre  Martinez.  The 
priests  now  generally  resided  in  the  Spanish  settlements, 
and  the  Pueblo  missions  became  only  out-stations  visited 
occasionally.  The  report  of  Dr.  Rascon  (1830),  the  vicar- 
general  of  the  Bishop  of  Durango,  presents  a  melancholy 
picture.  Churches  and  priests'  residences  were  falling  into 
ruin,  vestments  were  old,  altar-plate  scanty ;  the  people, 
not  accustomed  formerly  to  support  religion  by  their  own 
means,  could  not  be  induced  to  do  it  now;  many  died 
without  the  last  sacraments. 

The  Mexican  Congress  of  1823  and  1 836  talked  of  putting 
into  execution  the  order  of  the  Spanish  Cortes  in  regard  to 
the  establishment  of  a  bishopric,  but  nothing  was  done.  In 
1833  and  1845  the  Bishop  of  Durango  visited  the  province, 
but  we  have  no  details  that  might  relieve  the  dark  picture 
drawn  by  Rascon.    The  white  population  had  doubled,  the 


ANxVEXATJON    TO    TI/E    UXlTED   STATES.  75 

Indian  slightly  decreased.  The  total  in  1845  was  not  far 
from  eighty  thousand,  of  which  sixty  thousand  were  whites. 
There  were  but  seventeen  priests.  Now  nothing  proves 
so  well  how  neglected  religion  was  than  this  disproportion 
between  the  population  and  the  clergy.  A  renewal  of  life 
and  vigor  came  to  this  desolate  church  when  New  Mexico 
became  part  of  the  United  States,  which  happy  consumma- 
tion was  brought  about  by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo 
(1848). 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   MISSIONS   IN    ARIZONA    AND    TEXAS. 

Arizona  (aboriginal,  Arizonac)  is  the  name  of  a  moun- 
tain range  on  the  frontier  line  between  the  present  Terri- 
tory of  Arizona  and 'the  Mexican  province  of  Sonora,  and 
was  appHed  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  a  Spanish  min- 
ing-camp in  that  vicinity.  No  province  of  the  name  was 
known  in  Spanish  and  Mexican  times.  The  early  explorers, 
Father  Mark  of  Nizza,  Coronado,  Onate,  and  Espejo,  pene- 
trated into  this  region.  Oiiate  was  the  first  to  visit  the 
Moqui  pueblos  of  the  canon  of  the  Colorado ;  not,  indeed, 
himself,  but  the  lieutenants  whom  he  detailed  to  the  west 
of  his  main  line  of  march.  That  portion  of  our  present 
Territory  of  Arizona  lying  south  of  the  Gila  River  was  not, 
in  the  days  of  Spanish  dominion,  a  portion  of  New  Mexico, 
but  belonged  to  Sonora,  the  northwestern  province  of  the 
present  republic  of  Mexico,  and  went  by  the  name  of 
Pimeria  Alta ;  the  portion  north  of  the  Gila  River  was 
known  as  the  Moqui  district,  named  thus  from  the  most 
prominent  Indian  tribe  dwelling  therein.  This  latter  por- 
tion was  in  the  province  of  New  Mexico,  and  was  under 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of  Santa  Fe.  After 
Oiiate's  conquest  the  Moqui  accepted  Christianity  from  the 
Franciscans,  and  were  faithful  to  the  new  religion  until  the 
insurrection  of  1680,  after  which  date  they  never  returned 

to  the  church,  as  we  have  explained  in  the  preceding  chap- 

76 


FATHER  KINO. 


17 


ter.  We  shall  deal  with  the  missions  in  both  those  por- 
tions now  constituting  the  Territory  of  Arizona. 

Father  Kino  (Spanish  for  Kiihn),  from  the  Mexican  prov- 
ince of  Sonora,  where  the  Jesuits  had  flourishing  missions, 
was  the  first  to  establish  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
present  Territory  of  Arizona^  outside  the  Moqui  district, 
two  missions,  St.  Miguel  de  Guevavi  and  St.  Francis  Xav- 
ier  del  Bac,  between  Tombstone  and  Tucson.  This  was  in 
the  year  1687. 

He  v^as  a  most  remarkable  man,  full  of  energy,  and  of 
a  zeal  that  no  obstacles  could  discourage.  He  learned  the 
different  languages  of  the  country,  translated  the  catechism 
and  prayers,  composed  vocabularies  for  his  fellow-laborers 
and  successors,  built  houses  and  chapels,  selected  sites  for 
missions  and  towns,  traveled  more  than  twenty  thousand 
miles,  and  baptized  thousands — according  to  Clavigero, 
forty-eight  thousand.  On  his  journeys  he  carried  for  food 
only  parched  corn,  never  omitted  to  say  mass,  never  slept 
in  a  bed,  and  communed  constantly  with  God  in  prayer 
or  the  chanting  of  psalms  and  hymns.  In  a  word,  he  was 
the  Francis  Xavier  of  northern  Mexico.  As  he  traversed 
southern  and  western  Arizona  in  every  direction,  he  gave 
saints'  names  to  many  places ;  not  that  he  established 
missions,  but  that  he  hoped  the  places  he  named  after  the 
saints  might  become  the  seats  of  future  missions.  In  reality, 
he  established  within  the  present  limits  of  the  United  States 
only  the  two  missions  I  have  named.  He  was  rather  a 
forerunner  and  explorer  than  a  resident  missionary  on  our 
soil.      He  died  in  171 1. 

It  was  only  in  1732  that  two  fathers  were  sent  to  reside 
at  St.  Francis  Xavier  del  Bac  and  St.  Miguel  de  Gueva\i, 
which  became  centers  of  missionary  work  in  the  outlying 
country,  and  remained  under  the  care  of  the  Jesuits  until 
the  suppression  and  expulsion  of  the  society  by  the  Span- 


■jS  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vi. 

ish  government  in  i  767.  These  central  missions  and  many 
of  the  stations  had  neat  adobe  churches  well  supplied  with 
church  vestments  and  vessels,  and  religious  instruction  was 
given  in  the  languages  of  the  natives. 

The  Moqui,  after  Oiiate's  conquest  of  New  Mexico,  re- 
ceived the  faith  from  Franciscan  missionaries,  renounced 
it  during  the  insurrection  of  1680,  and  never  afterward 
returned  to  it.  The  Jesuits,  working  in  Arizona,  were 
anxious  to  gain  back  this  powerful  tribe,  and  the  Moqui 
were  better  disposed  toward  them  than  toward  the  Fran- 
ciscans, back  of  whom  were  the  military  authorities  of 
Santa  Fe  and  of  Spain,  the  main  object  of  their  dread  and 
hatred.  But  the  Franciscans  were  by  no  means  inclined 
to  allow  the  Jesuits  this  encroachment  in  a  field  that  had 
been  their  own  from  the  beginning.  They  must  then  be- 
stir themselves  to  make  some  effort  to  regain  the  apostate 
Moqui.  In  1742  two  Franciscan  missionaries,  unaccom- 
panied by  any  escort  of  soldiers,  made  their  way  to  the 
Moqui  towns,  and  persuaded  over  four  hundred  of  the 
Indians  to  abandon  their  fortresses  and  come  with  them  to 
pueblos  nearer  the  Spanish  settlements.  Again,  in  1745, 
the  Franciscans  sent  three  of  their  number  on  a  missionary 
tour  through  the  Moqui  district.  The  Jesuits  had  offered 
to  convert  those  Indians,  provided  the  missionaries  were 
guarded  by  the  military ;  and  for  a  time  the  king  of  Spain 
favored  their  proposal.  But  surely,  if  a  few  Franciscans, 
unescorted,  without  drawing  on  the  royal  treasury,  could 
bring  out  four  hundred  converts,  the  Moqui  were  not  so 
terrible  and  heathenish  a  tribe  as  represented.  The  pre- 
vious concessions  were  withdrawn  from  the  Jesuits,  and 
the  viceroy  was  ordered  to  support  the  rights  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans in  the  disputed  district.  We  have  seen  that  finally 
they  did  not  succeed  in  reclaiming  the  Arizona  tribe. 

After  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits,  the  Spanish  gov- 


/•///■;   M/SS/OX  OF   TUCSON.  79 

ernment  turned  over  the  missions  of  Sonora,  and  the  not 
inconsiderable  property  the  Jesuits  owned  in  that  province, 
to  the  Franciscan  missionary  college  of  Queretaro,  in 
Mexico.  With  this  transfer  went  the  missions  of  Arizona. 
Henceforth  we  must  seek  for  the  history  of  the  Arizona 
missions  in  the  chronicles  of  the  Santa  Cruz  College  of 
Queretaro.  St.  Francis  Xavier  del  Bac  was  committed  in 
I  768  to  the  care  of  PadreGarces.  The  mission  was  deserted  ; 
the  neophytes  were  scattered  and  had  forgotten  their  re- 
ligion. They  consented  to  return  if  not  compelled  to  work. 
The  official  report  of  1772  shows  a  population  of  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy,  and  describes  the  church  as  moderately 
capacious  and  poorly  furnished.  The  present  fine  church 
at  Bac  was  completed  in  i  797.  The  mission  has  no  later 
recorded  history.  From  about  1828  there  was  no  resident 
missionary  there.  The  mission  of  Guevavi,  called  in  Jesuit 
times  San  Miguel  and  in  Franciscan  times  Santos  Angeles, 
had,  at  the  time  these  latter  came  into  possession,  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  neophytes.  The  church  was  a 
.humble  building,  and  the  place  was  frequently  raided  by 
the  Apaches.  Guevavi  has  disappeared  from  our  maps. 
One  of  its  out-stations,  San  Jose  (Tumacacori)  became 
the  central  mission.  The  ruins  of  Tumacacori  are  still  to 
be  seen  near  Tubac.  I  forbear  mentioning  the  smaller 
stations  that  depended  on  those  two  central  missions. 

There  is,  however,  one  place  in  Arizona  that  in  our  day 
has  become  the  see  of  a  bishopric,  and  has  a  record  in  the 
mission  period ;  I  mean  Tucson.  The  capital  of  Arizona 
lays  claim  to  a  high  antiquity.  Roberts,  "  With  the  Inva- 
der," p.  116,  says  :  "  Tucson  is  an  ancient  city.  Antedating 
Jamestown  and  Plymouth,  it  was  visited  by  Coronado  in 
1540,  inhabited  by  Europeans  in  1560,  and  had  its  first  mis- 
sionaries in  1 58 1.  But  long  before  1540  there  was  an  Indian 
village  on  the  site  of  the  present  city,  so  that  Tucsonians 


8o  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  vi. 

can,  if  they  please,  claim  an  age  for  their  town  as  great  as 
the  Santa  Feans  claim  for  theirs."  But  the  truth  is,  Tucson 
is  not  heard'  of  in  Spanish  annals,  even  as  an  Indian 
rancheria,  till  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  (1750), 
and  was  not  properly  a  Spanish  settlement  till  the  presidio 
was  moved  there  at  a  still  later  date.  In  i  763  it  was  a 
station  depending  on  the  mission  of  Bac,  and  in  the  last 
years  of  Jesuit  control  it  contained  three  hundred  and 
thirty-one  Indians.  In  1772  it  had  neither  church  nor 
priest's  residence.  The  Apaches  did  great  damage  to  the 
village,  for  in  1774  it  contained  only  eighty  families.  At 
that  time,  through  the  efforts  of  Padre  Garces,  a  pueblo  was 
built,  also  a  church  and  a  priest's  house,  and  the  presidio 
formerly  at  Tubac  was  transferred  to  Tucson.  Then  ( i  7  76) 
it  became  a  Spanish  settlement.  The  annals  of  the  place 
are  a  blank  for  many  years ;  practically  so  down  to  1 840. 
Of  the  Franciscans  who  succeeded  the  Jesuits  the  best 
known  is  Padre  Garces,  who,  like  the  famous  Jesuit  Kino, 
became  a  great  traveler  in  Arizona  in  the  interests  of  the 
gospel.  The  conquest  of  Upper  California  to  the  church 
by  the  zealous  band  of  the  saintly  Serra  was  an  incentive 
to  their  Franciscan  brothers  laboring  in  the  field  of  Ari- 
zona. At  that  time  there  was  in  the  presidio  of  Tubac 
a  military  officer  who,  influenced  by  the  descriptions  he 
heard  from  Padre  Garces,  was  convinced  that  the  easiest 
route  from  Mexico  to  California  was  to  be  found  through 
Arizona.  He  was  allowed  by  the  Mexican  home  author- 
ities to  put  his  project  in  execution.  Garces  accompanied 
the  exploring  party  of  thirty-five  men  as  chaplain.  The 
result  of  this  exploration  was  entirely  satisfactory  to  tl.e 
authorities,  and  it  was  decided  to  open  up  a  route  tlirough 
Arizona  to  California,  and  protect  it  by  a  series  of  militar)' 
posts.  The  Franciscans  of  Oueretaro  resolved  likewise  to 
push  their  missionary  work  in  the  same  direction,  and  effect  a 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    TEXAS  MISSIONS.  8l 

junction  with  their  brothers  in  California  at  a  point  on  the 
Colorado  River.  But  the  two  missions  established  there 
had  a  short  existence.  In  1781  the  neighboring  tribes 
swooped  down  upon  them,  massacred  soldiers  and  mis- 
sionaries, destroyed  and  burned  churches  and  presidios; 
the  overland  route  was  abandoned,  and  communication  be- 
tween Mexico  and  California  continued  to  take  the  ocean 
route. 

There  is  a  great  lack  of  record  as  to  the  missions  of 
Arizona  from  1800  to  the  time  of  its  annexation  to  the 
United  States,  December,  1853,  when  the  treaty  was  signed, 
or  1855,  when  it  was  approved.  With  the  Spanish  domin- 
ion ends  the  history  of  the  Spanish  missions  in  Arizona; 
henceforth  they  become  part  of  the  church  of  the  United 
States. 

To  the  east  of  New  Mexico  lay  Texas.  No  definite 
boundary  between  them  was  marked,  nor  was  any  definite 
line  drawn  to  delimitate  the  French  territory  lying  east  of 
the  Spanish  province  of  New  Mexico  between  Texas  and 
Florida.  The  French  did  not  recognize  the  Mississippi  as 
a  frontier  line,  and  since  settlements  of  both  nations  did 
not  come  into  close  contact,  the  delimitation  remained 
vague.  The  present  boundary  between  Mexico  and  Texas 
is  the  Rio  del  Norte.  South  of  that  river  are  the  Mexican 
provinces  of  Nuevo-Leon  and  Coahuila.  This  latter  was 
the  basis  of  the  military  and  missionary  operations  into  the 
country  north  of  the  Rio  del  Norte  in  the  days  of  Spanish 
domination.  The  theater  of  those  operations  was  not  the 
whole  of  our  Texas,  but  only  its  southwestern  quarter,  as 
the  geographical  nomenclature  of  that  State  indicates. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  Spain 
was  the  only  European  power  that  claimed  and  explored 
the  present  United  States,  all  the  land  south  of  40°  latitude 
went  by  the  name  of  Florida.      It  was  to  explore  Florida 


82  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vi. 

that  Narvaez  sailed  (1528),  and  got  wrecked  on  the  Texan 
coast.  De  Soto  (1541-42)  marched  through  northeasten 
Texas.  In  the  same  year  Coronado  started  from  New 
Mexico  in  search  of  Quivira,  passing  through  northwestern 
Texas.  Onate  (1599)  followed  in  the  tracks  of  Coronado, 
searching,  like  him,  for  fabled  Quivira.  Penalosa,  gover- 
nor of  Santa  Fe,  if  we  are  to  take  his  account,  about  the 
trustworthiness  of  which  there  is  some  doubt,  marched  to 
the  Mississippi  in  1662.  These  are  the  earliest  recorded 
passages  of  the  Spaniards  over  Texan  soil.  The  word 
"Texas,"  according  to  H.  H.  Bancroft,  was  the  name  of 
a  tribe,  in  Spanish,  Tejas;  according  to  Shea,  it  was  the 
aboriginal  salutation  with  which  the  Spaniards  were  greeted 
in  that  territory,  and  means  "friends." 

In  1682  La  Salle  descended  the  Mississippi  to  its  mouth. 
In  1687  he  sailed  with  a  fleet  from  France  to  establish  there 
a  fort  and  connect  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  with  the  St.  Lawrence 
by  a  series  of  military  posts,  thus  giving  to  France  control 
of  the  interior  of  the  continent.  The  plan  was  spoiled  by 
the  incompetence  or  the  ill  fortune  of  the  naval  commander 
of  the  fleet.  The  pilot  missed  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
passed  beyond  it,  and  the  colony  was  landed  on  the  Texan 
coast  in  the  present  Metagorda  Bay,  called  at  the  time 
by  the  French  St.  Louis  Bay,  and  later  by  the  Spaniards 
Espiritu  Santo,  and  also  San  Bernardo.  La  Salle  was 
murdered  by  his  own  men,  and  the  ill-fated  colony  lin- 
gered and  was  decimated  by  death  and  the  Indians  until 
it  vanished  entirely.  Now  a  deserter  from  this  colony, 
known,  in  Spanish,  annals  by  the  name  of  Juan  Enrique, 
made  his  way  southward  into  the  province  of  Coahuila,  was 
forwarded  to  Mexico,  and  told  the  story  of  the  occupation 
by  the  French  of  what  was  considered  in  Mexico  as  Span- 
ish territory.  In  consequence  Alonso  de  Leon,  governor 
of  Coahuila,  was  ordered   by  the   Mexican   authorities  to 


FATHER  ANTHONY  M ARGIL.  83 

reconnoiter,  expel  the  intruders,  and  make  good  Spain's 
claim. 

This  expedition  (1689)  is  the  beginning  of  the  Spanish 
domination  and  missions  in  the  present  State  of  Texas. ^ 
With  the  governor  went  a  Franciscan,  Damian  Mazanet, 
with  three  friars  from  the  apostolic  college  of  Oueretaro. 
The  first  mission  established  was  called  San  Francisco  de 
Los  Texas.  Leaving  there  his  two  companions,  he  re- 
turned to  Coahuila  for  more  missionaries,  and  in  1691 
came  back  with  nine  fathers.  The  diary  of  Mazanet  end- 
ing at  this  date,  we  have  no  further  particulars ;  but  it  is 
well  ascertained  that  the  missions  were  abandoned,  and 
that  the  missionaries  departed  in  1693  ^^^  want  of  coop- 
eration and  protection  from  the  military  authorities. 

However,  the  work  was  resumed  in  1716,  at  which  time 
four  missions,  and  a  presidio  to  protect  them  from  hostile 
tribes,  were  established  in  southwestern  Texas,  between 
the  Trinity  and  the  Red  rivers.  The  small  band  of  mis- 
sionaries, five  in  number,  were  under  the  lead  of  the 
venerable  Father  Anthony  Margil,  who  had  founded  at 
Zacatecas,  in  the  Mexican  state  of  that  name,  an  apostolic 

1  H.  H.  Bancroft  assigns  the  year  1689  as  the  beginning  of  the  Spanish 
occupation  and  missions  of  Texas,  and  the  year  1729  as  the  foundation  of  San 
Antonio.  A  writer  in  the  "  Annual  Report  of  the  American  Historical  Asso- 
ciation "  (1891)  claims  that  there  was  an  expedition  into  Texas  in  1675  under 
command  of  Fernando  del  Bosque,  accompanied  by  three  Franciscan  fathers. 
There  is  still  an  earlier  date,  according  to  this  writer.  Father  Francisco 
Freyes  makes  the  colonization  of  Texas  to  begin  in  1630.  A  still  earlier  ex- 
pedition— that  of  Urdinola — came  to  Texas,  according  to  the  same  writer,  in 
1575  or  1576;  that  is  to  say,  thirteen  years  before  Oiiate's  conquest  and  occu- 
pation of  New  Mexico.  The  authority  advanced  for  the  above  assertions  is 
the  archives  of  Saltillo.  Now  there  is  indeed  a  Saltillo  in  Texas,  but  there 
is  also  a  Saltillo  in  Coahuila,  Mexico.  Bancroft  gives  its  history  ("  New 
Mexican  States  and  Texas,"  vol.  xv.,  p.  126).  It  was  the  seat  of  a  Fran- 
ciscan convent;  it  was  founded  in  1582,  erected  into  a  municipality  in  1586. 
Urdinola  was  sent  thither  in  1592  with  a  military  corps  of  four  hundred  Tlas- 
caltecs.  This  Saltillo  became  later  on  the  basis  of  military  and  missionary  ex- 
peditions into  our  present  State  of  Texas.  The  expeditions  mentioned  above 
on  the  authority  of  Saltillo's  archives  had  for  theater  northeastern  Mexico, 
not  our  State  of  Texas. 


84  '^'^^^   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Cmap.  vi. 

college  similar  to  that  of  Oueretaro  for  the  supply  of  the 
missions.  The  missions  in  charge  of  the  Queretaro  friars 
were  San  Francisco,  on  the  river  known  as  Trinidad,  Pu- 
rissima  Concepcion,  eight  or  nine  leagues  northeast  of  San 
Francisco,  Guadalupe,  San  Jose,  Dolores,  and  San  Miguel 
de  Cuellar.  Later  on,  in  1731,  the  missions  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, Concepcion,  and  San  Jose  were  united  and  transferred 
to  San  Antonio,  near  the  presidio  of  Bejar,  under  whose 
protection  they  were.  The  southern  missions  were  in 
charge  of  the  friars  of  Zacatecas  and  under  the  protection 
of  the  presidio  of  Pilar. 

"  The  illustrious  servant  of  God,"  says  Shea,  "  Anthony 
Margil  of  Jesus,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  in  the 
history  of  the  church  in  America,  whether  we  regard  his 
personal  sanctity,  the  gifts  with  which  he  w^as  endowed,  or 
the  extent  and  importance  of  his  labors  for  the  salvation 
of  souls.  His  life  has  been  subjected  to  the  rigid  scrutiny 
and  discussion  of  a  process  of  canonization  at  Rome,  so 
that  no  national  or  local  exaggeration  can  be  suspected." 
He  pushed  his  field  of  work  beyond  the  present  State  of 
Texas  into  Louisiana,  founded  the  mission  of  San  Miguel 
de  Linares,  near  the  sheet  of  water  still  called  Spanish 
Lake,  in  Natchitoches  County,  and  gave  to  the  French  of 
Natchitoches,  some  fifty  miles  east  of  San  Miguel,  on  the 
Red  River,  the  opportunity  of  receiving  the  sacraments, 
for  which  kindness  the  vicar-general  of  Mobile  sent  him 
thanks. 

Minute  details  of  the  founding,  the  transferring,  and  the 
abandoning  of  the  various  missions  cannot  be  given  in  a 
general  history  such  as  this.  We  are  to  conclude  from  a 
study  of  the  facts  that  the  missions  of  Texas  were  less  suc- 
cessful than  those  in  any  of  the  other  Spanish  provinces. 
For  this  there  are  many  reasons.  The  wandering  hostile 
tribes.  Apaches  and  others,  who  would  not  bear  sedentary 


FAILURE    OF    THE   M/SS/OXS.  85 

life,  or  any  yoke  whatsoever  of  civilization,  were  a  constant 
danger.  In  some  missions  the  small  number,  in  others  the 
total  lack,  of  the  military  left  them  open  to  raids  and  ruin. 
The  numerous  tribes  of  Texas,  the  torment  of  the  student 
at  this  day,  each  speaking  its  own  dialect,  were  an  obstacle 
to  the  success  of  the  missionaries.  After  years  of  experi- 
ence they  had  concluded  that  the  only  means  to  overcome 
this  difficulty  was  to  gather  various  cognate  tribes  into  res- 
ervations, on  the  plan  of  the  Jesuit  reductions  of  Paraguay, 
and  impose  on  them  one  common  language.  But  to  effect 
this  vast  project  constant  cooperation  of  the  military  was 
needed ;  and  not  only  was  it  insufficient,  but  it  was  ever 
grudgingly  given.  The  most  serious  cause  of  failure  was 
the  misunderstanding  between  the  officers  and  the  mis- 
sionaries. The  missionaries  found  themselves  dependent 
on  the  good  or  the  ill  will  of  the  military  commanders  of 
the  presidios.  Distance  from  the  central  government  and 
difficulty  of  communication  between  the  center  and  the 
extremities  have  a  tendency  to  make  subalterns  arbitrary 
.toward  inferiors  and  irresponsible  toward  superiors.  Not 
only  the  military  failed  to  give  to  the  missionaries  the  pro- 
tection needed,  but  they  often  misappropriated  the  stores 
and  means  that  should  have  been  devoted  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  missions. 

In  1 729  the  Spanish  town  of  San  Fernando  was  founded, 
close  to  the  mission  of  San  Antonio ;  in  the  course  of  time 
this  latter  name  prevailed  and  the  former  disappeared. 
The  settlement  was  composed  of  a  certain  number  of  Span- 
ish families  sent  by  order  of  the  king  from  the  Canary 
Islands.  The  priests  in  charge  were  seculars,  and  the 
records  of  the  parish,  dating  back  to  1731,  are  still  extant. 
Tlie  parish  does  not  seem  to  have  flourished.  The  baptisms 
were  twenty-two  in  1733,  eleven  in  1736.  The  town  was 
reinforced  by  a  second  immigration  of  Spanish  families  in 


86  THE  ROMAN  CA  TI/OLICS.  [Chap.  vi. 

I  744,  and  again  the  baptisms  ascend  to  the  formernumber 
and  beyond. 

In  1759  the  Bishop  of  Guadalajara,  Mexico,  Francis  de 
San  Buenaventura  Tejada,  visited  all  the  missions  of  Texas. 
No  doubt  his  report  of  the  visitation  would  be  most  in- 
teresting, but,  if  it  exists,  it  is  not  accessible.  The  records 
of  the  parish  of  San  Fernando,  now  in  the  city  of  San 
Antonio,  have  preserved  for  us  the  details  of  his  visitation 
in  that  Spanish  town.  The  church  had  five  hundred  and 
eighty-two  parishioners,  but  was  found,  nevertheless,  to 
be  in  a  deplorable  state  of  neglect,  which  called  forth  the 
bishop's  reproof.  The  Spanish  population  in  Texas  at  this 
time  consisted  of  three  thousand  souls,  living  at  San  An- 
tonio, the  presidios,  and  the  ranches.  There  were  secular 
priests  at  San  Antonio,  Sacramento,  Nacogdoches,  and 
Bahia,  and  usually  a  chaplain  for  the  troops. 

H.  H.  Bancroft  ("  North  Mexican  States  and  Texas," 
vol.  XV.,  p.  631)  sums  up  the  condition  of  the  Texan  mis- 
sions about  the  year  1785,  one  hundred  years  after  their 
first  founding,  naming  his  authorities,  the  chief  of  which 
is  the  report  by  Father  Jose  Francisco  Lopez,  made  to  the 
Bishop  of  Nuevo-Leon  or  Linares — a  see  erected  in  1777, 
and  including  Texas — on  the  condition  and  prospects  of 
the  missions  in  the  year  1785.  From  this  it  appears  that 
while  the  Spanish  population,  pure  and  mixed,  was  about 
three  thousand,  the  mission  Indians  in  eight  establishments 
were  but   five   hundred.^     The  whole   number  of  natives 

1  The  Spanish  settlements  and  Indian  missions  are : 

San  Antonio  Bejar. — Presidio,  founded  in  1718,  and  San  Fernando,  villa 
near  by,  founded  in  1730,  the  two  forming  one  settlement.  Site  of  modern 
San  Antonio.  Capital,  and  residence  of  governor.  Sixty  men  in  presidio; 
one  hundred  and  forty  houses. 

Santa  Cruz. — Stockade  fort  on  Arroyo  del  Cibolo.  Guard  of  twenty  men 
from  Bejar.      Founded  in  1772.      Six  ranches.      Population,  85. 

San  Antonio  dc  Valero. — Mission  opposite  Bejar,  later  called  the  Alamo. 
Founded  in  1718.  Nineteen  hundred  and  seventy-two  baptisms  down  to 
1762.      Population  then,  275;  in  1793,  43. 


ANNEXATION   TO    THE    UNITED   STATES.  87 

baptized  since  1690  was  less  tlian  ten  thousand,  and  at  no 
one  time  had  the  neophytes  exceeded  two  thousand.  The 
few  still  under  the  missionaries'  care  were  lazy,  vicious,  and 
tainted  with  syphilis.  Nowhere  in  Spanish  America  had 
missionary  work  been  so  complete  a  failure.  The  build- 
ings and  church  decorations  were  the  only  indications  of 
apparent  prosperity  in  the  past,  and  those  that  are  stand- 
ing to-day  show  to  what  efficiency  in  handiwork  the  Indians 
were  trained.  In  i  798  many  of  the  missions  were  secular- 
ized by  the  Mexican  authorities  ;  that  is  to  say,  taken  from 
the  Franciscans  and  turned  over  to  secular  priests. 

In  1805  Primo  Feliciano  Marin  de  Porras,  Bishop  of 
Linares,  made  the  episcopal  visitation  of  the  Texan  mis- 
sions, San  Fernando,  the  presidio  of  San  Antonio,  La 
Bahia,  and  Nacogdoches.  The  revolution  of  Mexico  against 
the  authority  of  Spain  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century 
threw    the    mission    work    into    confusion    and    disorder. 

Puressima  Concepcion. — A  league  from  Bejar;  founded  in  1716  on  another 
site;  transferred  to  present  site  in  1731.  Population  in  1762,  207.  Number 
of  baptisms  from  foundation,  792.  Population  in  1793,  51.  Best  church  in 
province,  cost  $35,000. 

San  Jose  v  Sa/i  Miguel  de  Agiiayo. — Founded  in  1 720.  Down  to  1762, 
1054  baptized;  in  that  year,  350  Indians.      Population  in  1793,  1 14. 

San  Juan  Capistrano. — Founded  in  1 7 16;  transferred  near  presidio  Bejar 
in  1731.      Baptisms  to  date,  847.      Population  in  1762,  203;  in  1793,  34. 

Sail  Erantisro  de  la  Espajada. — Original  mission  founded  in  1690;  reestab- 
lished in  1716  near  modern  Mound  Prairie,  not  far  from  original  site;  trans- 
ferred to  San  Antonio  in  1731.     Up  to  date  815  baptisms.      Population,  207. 

La  Bahia. — Presidio,  founded  in  1722,  on  site  of  La  Salle's  colony  of  St. 
Louis;  transferred  to  the  San  Antonio  River  in  1724;  again  to  site  of  mod- 
ern Goliad  in  1749.      Garrison,  53.      Popidation  in  1782,  515. 

Espiritu  Santo  de  Ziiniga. — Founded  near  the  above  presidio  in  1722  ;  trans- 
ferred with  it.      Baptisms  to  date,  623.      Population,  300;  in  1793,  ZZ- 

Rosario  Mission. — Founded  in  1754.      Up  to  date  200  Ijaptisms. 

Nacogdoches  Mission.  — Originally  of  G  uadal  upe,  founded  in  1 7 1 6  ;  abandoned 
finally  in  1773.  A  new  settlement,  Bucarelli,  founded  in  1776  on  the  Trini- 
dad ;  transferred  three  years  later  to  Nacogdoches.  Three  hundred  Indians  in 
neighborliood. 

Refugio  Mission. — Founded  in  1791,  south  of  La  Bahia,  near  the  coast. 
In  1793,  67  Indians. 

Some  thirteen  other  establishments,  of  which  four  had  been  presidios,  were 
abandoned  entirely  or  merged  into  those  above  named  between  1690  and  1 790. 


88  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  Vl. 

State  aid  ceased ;  the  republican  government  of  Mexico, 
controlled  by  Masonic  influences,  antagonized  the  church; 
the  missionaries,  natives  of  Spain,  were  expelled  ;  the  Span- 
ish population  diminished.  As  early  as  1829  Irish  settlers 
began  to  arrive,  and  formed  the  parish  of  San  Patricio. 
Other  emigrants  from  the  United  States — rough,  turbulent 
frontiersmen,  not  by  any  means  friendly  to  the  Catholic 
Church — poured  into  Texas,  gradually  took  into  their 
hands  the  machinery  of  government,  and  finally,  in  1836, 
proclaimed  the  independence  of  the  republic  of  Texas, 
and  sealed  the  proclamation  by  the  victory  of  San  Jacinto. 
That  the  missions  suffered  during  those  troubled  times 
goes  without  saying.  The  Spanish  domination  in  Texas 
had  come  to  an  end.  The  further  history  of  Catholicity  in 
that  province  belongs  to  the  second  part  of  this  work. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE    RISE    OF   THE    CALIFORNIAN    MISSIONS. 

After  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by  Cortez,  expeditions 
to  the  north  by  water  and  by  land  soon  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Spaniards  the  gulf  and  the  peninsula 
of  California,  and  opened  the  latter  to  permanent  occupa- 
tion, or  rather  to  some  settlements  on  the  coast  and  to  mis- 
sions among  the  Indian  tribes  of  Lower  California.  It  was 
much  later  that  the  soldiers  and  missionaries  entered  upon 
the  territory  that  is  now  com-prised  in  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia. The  name  California  first  appears  in  the  diary  of 
a  voyage  into  the  gulf  and  along  the  peninsula  in  15  39  by 
one  Presciado.  It  was  applied  not  to  a  whole  territory, 
but  to  a  locality.  Soon  it  was  extended  to  the  region,  and 
as  the  region  was  supposed  to  be  a  group  of  islands,  the 
name  was  pluralized  into  "  Las  Californias." 

The  origin  of  the  name  has  vexed  many  people,  and  the 
etymology  of  it  many  more.  The  origin  offers  no  difficulty 
since  1862,  when  Edward  E.  Hale  discovered  that  the 
early  Spaniards  got  the  name  from  an  old  romance,  the 
"  Sergas  of  E.splandian  "  often  printed  between  15  10  and 
1526.  In  that  work  is  mentioned  the  island  of  California, 
"  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Indies,  very  near  the  terrestrial 
paradise,"  peopled  with  strange  beings,  men,  and  animals. 
The  many  expeditions  by  water  that  Cortez  sent  north- 
ward were  intended  to  get  around  to  India,  with  the  ex- 
pectation of  finding  rich  and  wonderful  islands  on  the  wav. 

89 


90  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vii. 

When  one  of  these  expeditions  returned,  in  1536,  the  dis- 
gusted Spaniards  applied  the  name  of  the  fabulous  island 
of  the  old  romance  to  the  discovery  reported,  and  that  dis- 
covery was  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California.  As  to  the 
etymology,  it  remains  a  point  of  ingenious  guesswork  for 
the  philologist. 

Upper  California  was  not  occupied  permanently  until 
1 769.  But  many  explorations  were  made  before  that  year 
along  its  seaboard.  In  1542-43  Juan  Rodriguez  Cabrillo 
reached  the  site  of  Monterey,  and  after  his  death  on  the 
coast  his  lieutenant,  Ferrelo,  pushed  up  to  latitude  42° 
30',  the  present  northern  frontier  of  California.  Francis 
Drake,  roving  on  a  raid  around  the  world,  touched  (1579) 
the  Pacific  coast  in  38°  30',  where  he  found  a  "  convenient 
and  fit  harbor,"  in  which  he  refitted  his  ship.  This  was 
the  inlet  called  to-day  Drake's  Bay,  under  Point  Reyes; 
formerly  it  went  by  the  name  of  Old  San  Francisco  Bay. 
In  1584  Francisco  Gali,  sailing  from  Macao  by  way  of 
China,  reached  the  coast  in  37°  30'.  In  1595  Rodriguez 
Carmenon,  on  his  way  from  the  Philippine  Islands,  ran 
aground  in  the  bay  under  Point  Reyes  where  Drake  had 
put  in.  He  named  it  San  Francisco,  the  name  it  bore  until 
changed  to  Drake's  Bay.  Later,  when  the  present  Ba)^  of 
San  Francisco  w^as  discovered  and  the  name  of  the  saint 
was  given  to  it,  the  bay  outside  the  Golden  Gate  under 
Point  Reyes  was  christened  "  Old  San  Francisco  Bay." 

In  1602-03  Vizcaino  sailed  from  Acapulco  wath  three 
vessels,  two  hundred  men,  and  three  Carmelite  friars. 
The  work  given  him  to  do  was,  firstly,  to  find  a  suitable 
port  in  which  vessels  coming  from  the  Philippine  Islands 
might  find  refuge  and  opportunities  for  refitting;  and 
secondly,  to  find  out  if  anywhere  on  the  coast  there  was 
a  waterway  to  the  Atlantic,  such  as  Magellan  had  found 
at  the  southern  extremity  of  America.     It  is  he  named  the 


THE    CARMF.I.ri'ES.  9  I 

Bay  of  San  Diego,  though  Cabrillo  in  1543  liad  christened 
that  harbor  San  Miguel.  Vizcaino's  naming  has  prevailed. 
While  the  ships  were  cleaned  here,  the  friars  erected  a 
temporary  chapel  on  shore  and  celebrated  mass.  Sailing 
northward,  they  bestowed  melodious  saints'  names  on  isl- 
ands, harbors,  headlands  ;  and  when  they  came  to  Mon- 
terey, so  called  in  honor  of  the  Mexican  viceroy,  the  beau- 
tiful river  that  flows  into  the  bay  was  christened  Rio  de 
Carmelo,  in  honor  of  the  Order  of  the  Carmel.  Here 
again  a  stay  was  made  and  divine  service  was  held.  The 
fleet  sailed  as  far  north  as  Cape  Mendocino ;  but  the 
Golden  Gate  was  passed  unnoticed,  and  the  beautiful  Bay 
of  San  Francisco  remained  concealed  and  unknown  behind 
the  hills  that  stand  between  it  and  the  ocean.  Vizcaino 
returned  without  finding  a  strait,  and  no  port  was  selected 
as  a  place  of  refuge  and  rest  for  the  vessels  buffeted  by 
the  long  ocean  voyage  from  the  Philippine  Islands.  After 
Vizcaino,  all  interest  in  Upper  California  ceased  until  i  769. 
The  awakening  of  the  interest  was  due  to  many  motives : 
the  necessity  of  a  port  for  ships  in  the  Philippine  trade  ;  the 
probability  of  a  northern  interoceanic  strait ;  the  encroach- 
ments of  England  and  .France  on  the  American  continent ; 
the  consciousness  of  a  duty  to  convert  the  natives ;  above 
all,  the  advance  of  Russia  in  the  Northwest.  In  1728  Vitus 
Behring,  in  the  service  of  Russia,  had  set  out  from  Cape 
Kamtchatka  and  sailed  through  the  straits  that  now  bear 
his  name,  thus  proving  that  the  continent  discovered  by 
Columbus  was  separate  from  Asia.  Again,  in  1741,  he 
reached  Alaska  under  the  towering  cone  of  Mount  St. 
Elias,  and  claimed  for  Russia  a  slice  of  America  larger 
than  France  and  Germany  combined.  To  check  the 
further  advance  of  Russia,  the  order  came  from  Spain  to 
Mexico  in  i  768  to  occupy  San  Diego  and  Monterey,  and 
the  work  was  intrusted  to  Jose  de  Galves. 


92  The  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vii. 

He  arranged  for  an  expedition  by  sea  and  by  land,  each 
to  consist  of  two  divisions,  in  order  to  forestall  any  failure. 
The  occupation  was  to  be  religious  as  wejl  as  military,  and 
Father  Juniperro  Serra,  superior  of  the  missions  in  Lower 
California,  cooperated  with  Galves.  Three  Franciscans 
were  to  go  by  sea,  three  by  land.  Serra  gave  up  his 
position  of  superior  of  the  lower  missions  in  order  to  be 
one  of  the  missionaries  in  the  new  field,  and  joined  the  land 
expedition.  The  personal  enthusiasm  of  Father  Juniperro, 
who  from  i  769  until  his  death,  in  1 784,  was  at  the  head  of 
mission  affairs,  has  earned  for  him  a  well-deserved  reputa- 
tion for  ability  and  saintliness,  a  reputation  made  perma- 
nent by  the  biography  that  came  from  the  pen  of  his  friend 
Palou.  About  his  worth  as  a  man  and  as  a  Christian  there 
is  complete  agreement  on  all  sides ;  his  name  stands  for 
what  is  best  in  religion  and  for  what  is  most  romantic  in 
Spanish  annals. 

On  the  I  ith  of  April,  1769,  the  "  San  Antonio  "  sailed 
into  the  Bay  of  San  Diego  with  two  friars  on  board,  Juan 
Vizcaino  and  Francisco  Gomez.  On  the  29th  of  April  the 
consort  and  flag-ship,  the  "  San  Carlos,"  came  in  with  an- 
other missionary,  Hernando  Parron.  On  the  iith  of  May 
the  first  division  of  the  land  expedition  arrived  with  Father 
Juan  Crespi,  and  on  the  ist  of  July  the  other  division 
with  two  Franciscans,  one  of  whom  was  the  spiritual  con- 
quistador of  this  new  province,  Juniperro  Serra.  Imme- 
diately a  small  temporary  chapel  was  erected  and  dedi- 
cated, and  the  first  Californian  mission,  San  Diego,  was  es- 
tablished. Leaving  there  forty-six  persons  and  three  friars, 
the  military  commander,  Portola,  with  the  rest  of  the 
party  and  two  priests,  sixty-five  in  all,  started  to  establish 
the  second  post  at  Monterey. 

As  they  trudged  along  overland  they  bestowed  beauti- 
ful names  of  saints  in  sweet  Castilian  on  valleys,  rivers,  hills. 


DISCOVERY  OF  SAX  FRANCISCO   BAY.  93 

and  mountain  peaks,  many  of  which  names  survive  to  this 
day.  When  they  came  to  Monterey,  somehow  they  did  not 
recognize  it,  though  they  had  in  hand  the  clear  and  minute 
description  of  Vizcaino  and  the  Carmehtes.  Continuing 
their  search,  they  pushed  on  northward,  and  on  October 
31st  came  in  sight  of  the  Farallones  and  of  Point  Reyes, 
which  they  beheld  from  a  spot  near  the  present  Point  San 
Pedro.  Still  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  the  present  Bay 
of  San  P'rancisco,  which  they  had  not  as  yet  seen,  they  at 
once  recognized  the  old  port  of  San  Francisco,  where  Drake 
and  Carmenon  had  put  in.  Some  of  the  soldiers  happened 
to  climb  the  hills  back  of  the  present  city  of  San  Francisco, 
and  for  the  first  time  the  great  bay  was  revealed  to  Euro- 
pean eyes.  A  vessel — the  "  San  Jose  " — was  to  make 
junction  with  them  in  Monterey,  but  failed;  they  hoped 
she  would  meet  them  here.  Being  disappointed  of  this 
hope,  and  running  short  of  provisions,  they  were  forced  to 
return,  and  reached  Monterey  by  the  end  of  November. 
Their  eyes  were  not  yet  opened  to  recognize  it  as  the  port 
they  had  set  out  to  find,  and  so  they  passed  on,  after  hav- 
ing raised  a  cross  on  the  shore,  with  the  inscription,  "  Dig 
at 'the  foot  and  thou  wilt  find  a  writing."  They  arri\-ed 
at  San  Diego  January  24,  1770;  but  on  their  arrival,  when 
their  report  was  made  and  compared  with  Vizcaino's  de-" 
scription,  it  became  evident  to  them  that  they  had  been 
twice  in  Monterey  and  knew  not  the  place. 

Discouraged  by  the  failure  of  this  northern  trip,  by  the 
hostile  attitude  of  the  Indians,  who  during  the  expedition's 
absence  had  attacked  San  Diego,  by  the  shortness  of  pro- 
visions, which  could  not  last  another  summer,  Portola  de- 
cided to  abandon  Upper  California  if  by  the  end  of  March 
a  relief  ship  with  stores  and  men  did  not  arrive.  Great 
was  the  consternation  of  Serra  and  his  band.  They  had 
come  to  stay,  to  do  and  die  in  the  conversion  of  the  Indians, 


94  ^'-/^^   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vii. 

and,  should  the  others  go,  they  resolved  to  remain.  Never- 
theless they  hoped  that  the  project  of  the  commander  might 
not  be  carried  out,  and  they  took  such  means  to  realize  their 
hope  as  they  had  at  their  command.  They  betook  them- 
selves to  prayer.  On  the  feast  of  St.  Joseph,  the  19th  of 
March,  the  "  San  Antonio  "  sailed  into  the  harbor  with 
stores  and  reinforcements.  All  question  of  leaving  was 
given  up,  and  it  was  decided  to  carry  out  the  second  part 
of  the  original  purpose — that  is,  to  occupy  Monterey.  This 
time  Serra  accompanied  the  expeditionary  corps,  which  left 
San  Diego  in  April,  i  769,  and  arrived  at  its  destination  at 
the  end  of  May.  On  June  3d  possession  was  taken,  with 
the  usual  festivities,  in  the  name  of  the  king  of  Spain,  and 
on  June  14th  a  humble  chapel  was  dedicated  to  God 
under  the  invocation  of  San  Carlos  Borromeo.  Thus  were 
founded  the  presidio  and  mission  of  Monterey. 

Encouraged  by  his  good  fortune  thus  far,  and  anxious 
to  establish  other  centers  of  missionary  work,  Serra  applied 
to  the  Mexican  government  for  more  helpers.  In  answer 
to  his  request  ten  more  Franciscans  arrived  in  Monterey, 
April  10,  I  771.  Stimulated  by  the  success  of  the  children 
of  St.  Francis  in  this  new  field,  the  children  of  St.  Dominic 
applied  for  permission  to  share  in  their  work.  As  there 
might  be  some  inconvenience  in  two  orders  under  different 
superiors  working  in  the  same  region,  it  was  arranged  that 
the  missions  of  Lower  California  should  be  intrusted  to  the 
Dominicans  and  those  of  Upper  California  to  the  Francis- 
cans. The  transfer  of  the  field  of  Lower  California  to  the 
Dominicans  was  made  in  1773.  The  Franciscans  were 
restricted  to  Upper  California,  where,  concentrating  their 
forces,  they  quickly  produced  the  most  remarkable  effects 
in  the  conversion  of  the  natives. 

The  mission  of  San  Carlos  became  the  residence  of  the 
superior  and  the  headquarters  for  all   the  other  missions. 


THE  MISSION  SYSTEM. 


95 


Serra  transferred  the  mission  from  Monterey,  where  it  was 
at  first  set  up,  to  the  valley  of  the  Rio  Carmelo,  a  few 
miles  distant.  His  pretext  was  the  lack  of  water  and  good 
soil  in  Monterey  ;  his  real  reason  was  to  get  his  neophytes 
away  from  daily  immediate  contact  with  the  troops  of  the 
presidio.  This  was  a  wise  policy.  The  neighborhood  of 
the  military  force  was  undoubtedly  advantageous,  and  fre- 
quently necessary  for  the  .safety  of  a  mission  ;  the  intro- 
duction of  white  colonists  in  settlements  was  an  important 
part  of  the  government's  plan,  and  was  beneficial  in  putting 
before  the  Indians  the  lessons  of  agriculture,  industry,  and 
civilization ;  but  whereas  soldiers  and  settlers  were  not 
Hkely  to  be,  at  all  times,  living  models  of  the  religion  they 
professed  and  the  missionaries  taught  in  all  its  ideal  purity 
and  severity,  it  was  necessary  to  segregate  as  much  as 
possible  the  newly  converted  Indians  from  contact  with  the 
Spaniards. 

Hence  presidio,  the  military  post,  pueblo,  the  Spanish 
colony,  mission,  the  neophytes'  establishment,  were  always 
at  a  distance  from  one  another,  yet  not  so  far  apart  that  they 
could  not  have  speedy  intercommunication  and  mutual  sup- 
port in  case  of  need.  When  the  occupation  of  California 
was  completed  there  were  four  presidios — San  Diego,  Santa 
Barbara,  Monterey,  and  San  Francisco.  The  number  of 
soldiers  assigned  to  each  was  limited  to  two  hundred  and 
fifty,  but  they  were  rarely  up  to  that  number.  From  these 
principal  stations  a  guard  of  four  or  five  was  detached, 
when  required  by  the  fathers,  to  accompany  them  in  their 
journeys  through  the  unoccupied  portions  of  the  country; 
and  a  detail  of  a  few  men  was  attached  to  each  mission  to 
preserve  order  and  defend  the  mission  buildings  and  their 
inmates  from  the  sudden  attacks  of  the  wild,  unconverted 
natives.  The  pueblos,  after  some  years,  were  three  in  num- 
ber— Los  Angeles,  San  Jose,  and  Banciforte.     They  were 


96  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai-.  vii. 

served  by  the  fathers,  though  not  subject  to  them  in  the 
sense  that  the  missions  were.  Each  pueblo  was  self-gov- 
erning, having  its  alcalde,  or  mayor,  and  town  council. 

Within  the  missions  only  converted  natives  resided  under 
the  immediate  spiritual  and  temporal  government  of  the 
fathers.  Here  was  to  be  found  ideal,  absolute  paternalism 
in  government.  The  buildings  that  went  by  the  name  "  mis- 
sion "  were  quadrilateral,  each  side  about  six  hundred  feet 
in  length.  The  whole  consisted  of  the  church,  the  quarters 
of  the  military  detail,  the  fathers'  convent,  schools  for  boys 
and  girls,  and  storehouses.  The  establishment  was  under  the 
management  of  two  religious ;  one  attended  to  the  interior, 
the  other  to  the  exterior  administration.  The  female  chil- 
dren, under  the  care  of  approved  matrons,  were  taught  the 
branches  necessary  for  their  condition  in  life ;  the  more 
talented  were  trained  in  vocal  and  instrumental  music. 
The  boys  were  taught  mechanical  and  industrial  trades. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  all  were  taught  the  elementary 
three  R's.  Morning  and  evening  prayer  in  common,  and 
daily  attendance  at  mass,  gave  to  the  life  of  the  inmates  a 
semimonastic  appearance. 

Clustered  around  the  mission  buildings  were  the  thatched 
huts  in  which  lived  the  Indians  converted  to  the  faith, 
whose  children  were  in  the  schools.  They  tilled  or  used 
as  pasturage  the  land  about  the  mission  to  the  distance  of 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles.  The  limits  seem  to  have  been  the 
equidistances  between  the  settlements,  whether  missions, 
pueblos,  or  presidios.  When  the  secularization  of  the  mis- 
sions came  on,  as  we  shall  see,  the  ownership  of  those  lands 
became  a  serious  difficulty.  The  fathers  maintained  that 
they  belonged  to  the  missions ;  the  Mexican  government 
maintained  that  they  had  been  given  to  the  missionaries 
only  on  trust  for  the  agricultural  training  of  the  Indians, 
but  that  in  reality  they  were,  and  remained,  the  property 


*TIJE   MISSION  PROrERTIES.  97 

of  the  nation,  subject  to  a  change  of  hands  under  the 
colonization  laws. 

The  government's  idea  was  that  the  missions  were  never 
intended  to  be  permanent  establishments.  The  time  would 
come  when  the  Franciscans — the  pioneers  and  skirmishers, 
so  to  speak — should  give  way  to  the  regular  army  of  the 
church,  bishop,  and  diocesan  clergy  ;  when  the  Indians,  after 
having  been  trained  to  civilization  by  the  paternal  system 
of  the  fathers,  should  be  emancipated  from  civil  childhood, 
and  should  become,  so  to  speak,  men  made  into  individual 
owners  of  the  land  and  citizens  of  the  state ;  when  missions 
should  be  transformed  into  pueblos,  with  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  self-government.  Such  has  been  the  view 
held  by  the  Mexican  and  later  on  by  the  American  courts 
as  to  the  mission  lands.  The  mission  lands,  therefore, 
were  never  the  property  of  the  fathers,  but  were  held  in 
trust  by  Spain  for  the  Indians.  I  say  mission  lands,  mean- 
ing thereby  the  tracts,  as  above  described,  formerly  occu- 
pied and  used  by  the  Indian  converts.  Mission  property — 
.that  is,  the  buildings,  houses,  vineyards,  and  orchards  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  churches — occupied  and  used  by 
the  missionaries,  must  be  viewed  in  quite  another  light  and 
judged  by  quite  a  different  standard.  This  kind  of  prop- 
erty belonged  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  California,  in  trust 
to  those  who  represented  the  church  then,  the  Franciscans  ; 
in  trust  to  those  who  represent  her  now,  the  Catholic 
bishops  of  California. 

Serra  founded  the  mission  of  San  Antonio  on  July  14, 
1 77 1,  and  that  of  San  Gabriel  in  August  of  the  same  year. 
The  following  letter  of  Serra  to  a  friend,  dated  "  Mission 
of  San  Carlos,  Monterey,  i8th  August,  1772,"  will  give 
an  idea  of  the  mission  work  in  CaHfornia:  "  Our  greatest 
consolation  is  the  knowledge  that  from  Monterey,  San 
Antonio,   and   San   Diego   there   are   numerous   souls   in 


g8  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  '  [Chap.  vii. 

heaven.  From  San  Gabriel  there  are  none  as  yet,  but 
among  those  Indians  there  are  many  who  praise  God. 
However,  there  are  those  who  think  that  from  lambs  they 
will  become  tigers.  This  may  be  so,  if  God  permits  it ; 
but  after  three  years'  experience  they  appear  to  us  better 
every  day.  If  all  are  not  already  Christian,  it  is  only 
owing  to  our  unacquaintance  with  the  language.  This  is  a 
trouble  which  is  not  new  to  me,  and  I  have  always  imagined 
that  my  sins  have  not  permitted  me  to  possess  this  faculty 
of  learning  strange  tongues,  which  is  a  great  misfortune  in 
a  country  such  as  this,  where  no  interpreter  or  master  of 
language  can  be  had  until  some  of  the  natives  learn  Span- 
ish, which  requires  a  long  time."  He  then  goes  on  to  beg 
for  more  missionaries,  and  adds  :  "  Let  those  who  come  here 
come  well  provided  with  patience  and  charity,  and  let  them 
possess  a  good  humor;  for  they  may  become  rich,  I  mean 
in  troubles.  But  where  will  the  laboring  ox  go  where  he 
must  not  draw  the  plow  ?  And  if  he  do  not  draw  the  plow 
how  can  there  be  a  harvest?  " 

Not  content  with  asking  by  letter,  Serra  resolved  to  go 
in  person  to  Mexico  for  more  missionaries,  founding  on 
his  way  to  San  Diego  the  fifth  mission,  San  Luis  Obispo. 
The  motives  of  this  journey  were  manifold.  Word  had 
come  that  a  new  viceroy  was  in  Mexico;  it  was  well  to 
know  how  he  was  affected  toward  the  Californian  missions. 
The  experience  of  a  few  years  had  proved  that  certain 
changes  were  necessary  for  the  better  working  of  the 
system  ;  these  changes  had  regard  mostly  to  the  relations 
between  the  military  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in 
California.  Then  he  had  charges  to  prefer  against  Pages, 
the  military  commander:  bad  treatment  and  haughty 
manners  toward  his  men ;  meddling  with  the  management 
of  the  missions ;  taking  into  his  own  hands  the  punishment 
of  neophytes,  whereas  only  the   gravest  crimes,  such   as 


S£KKA  'S  REPORT.  c)r) 

bloodshed  and  murder,  came  under  his  jurisdiction  ;  re- 
fusal to  remove  from  the  mission  guard  soldiers  guilty  of 
immoral  conduct,  irregular  and  delayed  delivery  of  the 
missionaries'  mail ;  and  other  smaller  grievances.  If  the 
close  union  of  church  and  state  in  the  early  Christianity 
of  California  was  of  some  advantage  to  the  church — and 
that  cannot  be  denied — it  was  also  productive  of  some  dis- 
advantages. It  cannot  be  otherwise  when  you  bring  into 
very  close  union  men  of  the  church  and  men  of  the  state, 
so  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it  is.  Cannot?  Theo- 
retically the  assertion  is  too  strong.  At  any  rate,  it  has 
never  been  otherwise,  as  history  proves  on  a  wider  scale. 
And  Spanish  California  may  stand  a  miniature  of  all  his- 
tory on  this  point. 

While  in  Mexico,  Serra  submitted  to  a  Mexican  com- 
mission (May  21,  1773)  the  first  official  report  on  the  Cali- 
fornian  missions.  The  missions  were  five — San  Diego,  San 
Gabriel,  San  Luis  Obispo,  San  Antonio,  San  Carlos.  They 
were  in  charge  of  nineteen  Franciscans  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Franciscan  college  de  propaganda  fide  of  San 
Fernando  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  The  military  body  was 
composed  of  sixty  men  under  a  commander  resident  in 
Monterey ;  each  mission  had  a  guard  of  six  or  seven  sol- 
diers under  a  sergeant.  As  yet  there  were  no  pueblos. 
The  results  of  mission  work  for  the  first  five  years  were 
491  baptisms  and  62  marriages.  This  small  number  was 
owing  to  the  cautiousness  of  the  missionaries,  who  admitted 
the  natives  to  baptism  only  after  a  long  instruction  in  relig- 
ion, and  to  the  inability  of  the  missions  to  feed  and  clothe 
a  larger  number  of  converts.  Agriculture  had  not  yet  been 
adopted  on  a  large  scale.  There  was  but  a  small  garden 
around  each  mission,  and  a  system  of  irrigation  was  needed 
for  further  development.  The  pasturage  was  good,  and  each 
mission  began  with  a  small  herd  of  cattle,  which  had  thriven. 


I OO  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  vii. 

The  architecture  at  this  time  was  rude,  consisting  mainly  of 
stockaded  huts.  Adobe  made  its  appearance  later.  Then 
were  erected  the  mission  buildings  the  ruins  of  which 
are  even  now  a  prominent  and  romantic  feature  in  the 
Californian  landscape — huge  quadrilaterals  with  stretching 
arcades,  containing  church,  workshops,  school,  and  monas- 
tery. It  is  an  architecture  quite  unique ;  it  is  Spanish,  it  is 
Moorish,  but  it  is  also  specifically  Californian — that  is  to 
say,  here  is  a  certain  originality  of  design,  the  outcome  of 
convenience  and  adaptability  to  climate  and  needs.  Neither 
in  Spain  nor  elsewhere  in  America  can  anything  exactly 
like  it  be  found. 

The  Mexican  authorities,  after  examining  the  complaints 
and  demands  of  Serra,  gave  decisions  favorable  to  him  on 
most  points.  The  number  of  troops  was  increased;  three 
more  presidios  were  ordered — San  Diego,  Santa  Barbara, 
and  San  Francisco.  Each  mission  was  to  be  supplied  with  a 
number  of  servants  to  be  paid  from  the  royal  exchequer. 
To  obviate  the  uncertainty  of  the  relief  ships,  sent  annually 
with  stores,  an  overland  route  was  to  be  opened  from  the 
presidio  of  Tubac  in  northern  Sonora,  by  way  of  the  Gila 
and  the  Colorado,  to  Monterey.  We  have  seen  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  that  this  project  was  a  failure.  The  com- 
mandant was  ordered  to  transfer  from  the  mission  guard  any 
soldier  against  whom  the  fathers  might  make  complaints  of 
irregular  conduct.  The  missionary  was  to  manage  his  mis- 
sion as  a  father  his  family.  The  friars'  correspondence  was 
to  be  sacred,  and  to  be  forwarded  separately  from  all  other 
mail.  Each  mission  was  to  receive  an  annual  stipend  of 
$800.  The  expenses  for  the  military  and  ecclesiastical 
budget  were  to  come  from  the  salt-works  of  San  Bias, 
Lower  California,  the  revenue  of  which  was  $25,000,  from 
the  Pious  Fund,  and,  if  these  sources  did  not  suffice,  from 
the  royal  exchequer. 


THE   PIOUS  FUND.  lOT 

The  Pious  Fund  was  the  aggregate  of  sums  of  money- 
donated  mostly  by  individuals  for  the  missions  in  the 
northern  provinces  of  Mexico,  and  principally  in  Lower 
and  Upper  California.  This  fund  was  begun  in  1697  by 
the  Jesuit  fathers,  then  in  charge  of  Lower  California  and 
later  of  Arizona.  In  twenty  years — that  is  to  say,  by  the 
year  17 16 — it  amounted  to  $1,273,000,  of  which  only 
$18,000  had  been  received  from  the  government.  Much 
of  this  capital  was  in  the  hands  of  the  original  donors,  who 
paid  the  interest  annually.  But  failure  of  one  of  the  donors, 
causing  to  the  fund  a  loss  of  $10,000,  induced  the  Jesuit 
fathers  to  call  in  all  the  donations  and  invest  them  in  land 
and  other  securities,  such  as  mines,  manufactories,  or  cattle ; 
and  the  annual  revenue  of  such  investments  was  devoted  to 
the  missions.  When  the  Jesuits  were  suppressed  by  Spain, 
the  Mexican  authorities  took  charge  of  the  fund  as  trustees 
and  farmed  it  out  for  the  benefit  of  the  missions.  It  was 
yielding  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  an  annual 
revenue  of  $50,000,  half  of  which  went  to  both  Californias 
and  half  to  other  missions,  so  that  the  Franciscans  of  Upper 
California  received  as  their  share  but  a  quarter  of  this 
annual  revenue.  In  later  years  the  confiscation  of  this 
fund  by  the  Mexican  authorities  seriously  crippled  the 
Californian  missions,  as  we  shall  see. 

The  success  of  Serra's  journey  to  Mexico  proves  that, 
if  he  was  a  zealous  missionary  and  saintly  monk,  he  was 
also  a  prudent  administrator,  a  firm  advocate  of  the  rights 
of  the  church,  and  a  keen  man  of  business.  In  the  autumn 
of  1773  he  set  out  from  Mexico  with  an  additional  number 
of  soldiers  for  the  presidios  and  of  missionaries  for  new 
foundations.  In  consequence  the  mission  of  San  Juan 
Capistrano  was  founded  in  October,  1775,  that  of  San  Fran- 
cisco in  September  of  the  same  year,  and  that  of  Santa  Clara 
in  January,  1777.      Serra  had  applied  to  Rome  through  his 


I02  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vil. 

superiors  in  Mexico  for  license  to  administer  the  sacrament 
of  confirmation,  as  the  distance  and  difficulties  of  the  long- 
journey  from  northern  Mexico  to  Upper  California  pre- 
vented the  bishop  from  coming  for  that  purpose.  Clement 
XIV.  granted  the  privilege  to  the  president  of  the  missions, 
with  the  power  to  subdelegate  the  same  to  four  other  mis- 
sionaries. The  grant  was  for  ten  years.  It  expired  in 
1784  with  the  death  of  Serra.  During  his  life  he  con- 
firmed 5309  persons.  The  grant  was  renewed  to  his  suc- 
cessor, Lasuen,  who  in  five  years  confirmed  9000.  After 
his  death  it  lapsed  entirely. 

Though  Serra  had  gained  all  his  points,  the  controversies 
between  church  and  state  in  California  were  frequent  and 
bitter  during  this  period.  For  instance,  the  privilege  of 
confirming  raised  a  difficulty.  Under  pretext  that  the 
privilege  had  not  been  sanctioned  by  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment, the  governor  enjoined  Serra  from  the  use  of  it  until 
a  decision  came  from  Mexico  in  1781  to  the  governor  to 
let  the  good  father  alone.  The  missionaries  were  charged 
by  the  military  with  excessive  severity  and  even  cruelty 
in  correcting  the  natives.  The  Indians,  when  guilty  of 
misdemeanor,  had  to  be  punished,  if  order  was  to  be  main- 
tained ;  but  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the  missionaries  in- 
flicted with  their  own  hands  the  punishment,  when  it  was 
bodily,  or  that  they  allowed  the  punishment  to  go  beyond 
the  bounds  of  justice.  They  were  charged  with  neglect- 
ing the  spiritual  care  of  the  presidios.  Now,  though  they 
served  the  troops  gratuitously,  they  never  failed  to  visit 
them  regularly,  except  when  the  presidio  was  so  near  the 
mission,  as  in  the  case  of  San  Francisco,  that  the  soldiers 
could  without  great  inconvenience  come  to  the  friars  for 
spiritual  ministration.  They  were  charged  with  refusing 
to  sell  to  the  presidios  mission  produce  at  the  prices  fixed 
by  the  government.     But  no  tariff  had  been  set  by  the 


CHARGES  AND   COUNTERCHARGES.  103 

king,  and  naturally  the  price  of  provisions  followed  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  harvest,  the  periods  of  scarcity  or 
abundance.  It  was  alleged  against  them  that,  without 
permission  of  the  governor  and  in  defiance  of  law,  they 
retired  from  the  missions  and  returned  to  Mexico,  and  thus 
kept  up  a  constant  migration  to  and  fro.  This  is  admitted, 
and  it  is  claimed  that  full  liberty  in  the  change  of  the  mis- 
sionaries should  be  allowed  to  the  superiors,  as  they  alone 
could  know  and  appreciate  the  reasons  for  the  removal  of 
their  subjects.  Fault  was  found  that  they  allowed  their 
neophytes  to  ride  too  much  and  too  far,  wherein  there  was 
danger  lest  they  should  become  skillful  warriors.  But  there 
were  none  but  the  natives  to  serve  as  herdsmen,  and  herding 
could  not  be  done  over  vast  ranges  except  on  horseback. 

The  fathers  had  their  countercharg-es  to  make  against 
the  governor  and  the  military  commanders  of  the  presidios. 
And  one  marvels,  as  he  reads  the  old  manuscript  accounts, 
that  a  handful  of  Europeans  thrown  together  amid  savage 
tribes  far  from  home  could  waste  their  time  and  energies 
in  quarrels  seemingly  insignificant.  But  they  quarreled 
not  as  men  and  neighbors,  but  as  representatives  of  the 
kingdom  of  Spain  and  of  the  Order  of  St.  Francis.  Other- 
wise their  relations  were  most  pleasant.  Governors  did  not 
weary  of  testifying  to  the  zeal  and  success  of  the  mission- 
aries, and  missionaries  were  not  slow  to  recognize  that  their 
zeal  and  labors  would  have  small  chance  of  being  effective 
without  the  presence  and  the  protection  of  the  represent- 
atives and  troops  of  Spain.  The  recriminations  may  be 
forgotten  and  forgiven  in  the  grand  result  of  their  concord. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE   DECLINE    OF   THE    MISSIONS. 

Serra  died  on  the  28th  of  August,  1784,  as  he  had 
lived,  a  saint.  As  such  he  was  held  by  all,  and  miracles 
are  said  to  have  been  wrought  by  him  alive,  and  through 
his  intercession  after  his  death.  Eight  missions  had  been 
established  by  him,  and  5800  persons  had  been  brought  to 
the  knowledge  and  practice  of  Christianity.  The  reader 
has  now  a  fair  idea  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  mis- 
sion work  in  California  was  carried  on.  It  is  not  within  my 
compass  to  go  into  the  details  of  their  expansion.  Statis- 
tics will  best  tell  the  results.  Forty-three  years  after  the 
first  foundation  there  were  eighteen  missions,  with  two 
fathers  in  each,  and  a  Christian  native  population  of  15,500. 
Fifty-three  years  after  the  first  foundation  there  were 
•twenty  missions,  with  a  population  of  20,900.  Sixty-five 
years  after  the  foundation  there  were  twenty- one  missions, 
with  a  population  of  30,600.  At  this  latter  date  the  mis- 
sions possessed  62,500  horses,  321,500  head  of  cattle,  large 
and  small,  and  produced  122,500  bushels  of  grain. 

These  results  are  marvelous,  considering  the  time  and 
especially  the  people  among  whom  they  were  effected. 
H.  H.  Bancroft  ^  gives  such  a  description  of  the  central  and 
southern  tribes  of  California  as  would  place  them  lower 
than  any  Indians  met  by  Spaniards  in  North  America. 
They  were  an  idle  and  lazy  race,  living  mostly  on  fish, 

1  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  i. 
104 


LA    PP.ROUSE   IX   CAI.irORXIA.  105 

roots,  and  nuts;  not  being  hunters,  they  had  not  the  fear- 
lessness, bravery,  and  independence  that  are  characteristic 
of  our  northern  Indians.  "Digger  Indians"  is  the  name 
given  them  by  our  early  American  settlers.  La  Perouse, 
who  visited  California  in  1785,  has  much  to  say  of  the 
state  of  the  missions  at  that  time.  He  narrates  in  his 
"  Voyage  autour  du  Monde  "  a  visit  to  the  mission  of  San 
Carlos.  "  After  crossing  a  little  plain  covered  with  herds 
of  cattle  ...  we  ascended  the  hills  and  heard  the  sound 
of  bells  announcing  our  coming.  We  were  received  like 
lords  of  a  parish  visiting  their  estates  for  the  first  time. 
The  president  of  the  mission,  clad  in  cope,  holy-water 
sprinkler  in  hand,  received  us  at  the  door  of  the  church, 
illuminated  as  on  the  grandest  festivals."  He  goes  on  to 
present  a  general  view  of  the  system,  of  the  neophytes  and 
the  routine  of  their  daily  life,  of  the  material  civilization 
created  by  the  zeal  of  the  missionaries,  whom  he  praises 
in  the  highest  terms  for  their  motives  and  their  complete 
disinterestedness.  Yet  he  predicts  that  their  training  of 
the  Indians  is  doomed  in  the  end  to  failure.  The  neo- 
phyte was  treated  too  much  as  a  child,  too  little  as  a  man, 
and  was  not  being  prepared  for  self-support  and  independ- 
ent existence.  The  duties  and  obligations  of  material  life 
were  forgotten  in  the  work  of  raising  him  to  the  privileges 
of  the  spiritual,  supernatural,  and  eternal  life.  The  com- 
munity system,  which  ought  only  to  be  a  temporary  school 
for  individual  citizenship,  was  seemingly  accepted  as  a 
perpetual  institution.  "  I  have  only  to  desire,"  he  con- 
cludes, "  a  little  more  philosophy  of  the  missionaries, 
austere,  charitable,  religious,  whom  I  have  met  in  these 
missions." 

These  strictures  were  proved  true  by  the  event  which 
soon  followed  the  culminating  period  of  the  Californian 
missions.       During  the    first   quarter   of   the    nineteenth 


I06  THE   ROMAN'  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  viii. 

century  (1808-24)  took  place  in  Mexico  a  change  of 
government,  the  upsetting  of  Spanish  rule  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  republic.  This  revolution  brought  on  the 
secularization  of  the  missions.  Secularization  meant  the 
confiscation  of  the  mission  properties,  the  breaking  up  of 
the  mission  communities  to  give  way  to  individual  owner- 
ship by  the  Indians,  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Franciscans 
to  make  way  for  a  secular  clergy,  for  whom  no  preparation 
had  been  made.  The  total  ruin  of  the  missions,  the  return 
of  the  Indians  to  savage  life  and  to  paganism,  were  the 
results  of  this  inopportune  policy.  Mexico  had  not  learned, 
it  appears,  the  lesson  which  the  United  States  government 
of  our  day  has  reaped  from  a  long  experience — that  it 
takes  years  of  waiting,  of  patient  toil,  of  slow  training,  to 
turn  the  red  man  into  a  property-owner  and  an  intelligent, 
self-supporting  citizen.  We  are  indeed  making  that 
change  at  present,  but  not  rashly  and  by  the  wholesale ; 
rather  gradually  and  man  by  man. 

Though  the  republic  of  Mexico  effected  the  seculariza- 
tion, it  was  Catholic  Spain  herself  that  had  decreed  it. 
The  theory  of  missions  was  never  vague  or  doubtful  to 
the  Spanish  government.  The  duty  of  the  missionary 
was  to  convert  the  natives,  fit  them  for  citizenship,  and 
finally  turn  them  over  to  the  care  of  a  diocesan  clergy. 
Such  was  the  theory.  Practically,  however,  the  friars 
were  never  ready  for  the  change,  the  neophytes  were 
never  fit  for  it,  because  in  the  Franciscan  system  there 
was  no  room  for  gradual  preparation  toward  citizenship. 
More  than  once  the  civil  authorities  had  ordered  that  the 
Indians  of  the  Californian  missions  should  be  essayed  in 
government,  without,  however,  being  freed  from  all  control 
of  the  fathers,  by  allowing  them  the  election  of  certain 
officials  and  turning  over  to  them  certain  minor  affairs. 
But  the  missionaries  were  always  unwilling  to  make  the 


SECULARIZATION  OF   THE  MISSIONS. 


107 


essay.  For  two  centuries  throughout  Spanish  America 
contests  between  bishops  and  missionaries  of  rehgious 
orders  had  been  frequent,  aijd  many  missions  had  been 
secularized ;  that  is  to  say,  taken  from  the  rehgious  and 
given  over  to  a  diocesan  body  of  priests,  against  the  will 
of  the  pioneer  missionaries. 

On  September  13,  181 3,  the  Cortes  of  Spain  passed  a 
decree  that  all  missions  in  America  that  had  been  founded 
since  ten  years  should  at  once  be  given  up  to  the  bishops 
within  whose  jurisdiction  they  were,  without  excuse  or 
pretext  whatsoever,  in  accordance  with  the  laws.  Friars 
might  be  appointed,  if  necessary,  as  temporary  curates. 
Their  business,  however,  was  considered  to  be  to  move 
onward  for  the  conversion  and  the  spiritual  conquest  of 
new  worlds,  which  were  to  be  surrendered  in  turn  to  the 
regular  hierarchical  hosts  of  the  church  for  permanent 
occupation.  The  management  of  the  temporalities  was  to 
be  surrendered  by  them,  the  mission  lands  were  to  be 
partitioned  for  private  ownership  among  the  converted 
natives,  and  the  neophytes  were  to  be  governed  by  their 
own  town  councils  under  the  civil  representatives  of  Spain. 
This  decree  applied  to  California  as  well  as  to  all  Spanish 
America.  But  no  attempt  was  made,  at  the  time  of  its 
enactment,  to  execute  it  in  California.  At  any  rate,  the 
missions  in  the  province  were  not  ready  for  the  change. 
No  bishop  had  ever  visited  California,  or  given  a  thought 
to  gathering  a  body  of  diocesan  priests  to  replace  the  friars 
there. 

The  good  Franciscans  were  safe,  therefore,  when,  in 
18 1 8  and  18 19,  they  informed  the  bishop  under  whose 
jurisdiction  their  territory  was,  the  Bishop  of  Sonora  and 
Sinaloa,  that  he  might  put  his  priests  in  charge  of  the 
southern  missions,  if  he  thought  the  times  ripe  for  the 
change.     The  bishop  did  not  find  the  times  ripe.      It  was 


I08  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  vili. 

some  years  later  (1833)  that  the  republic  of  Mexico  re- 
newed the  decree  of  secularization  and  set  about  its  execu- 
tion. But  previous  to  that  date  the  missions  had  suflfered 
much  in  their  temporalities.  The  annual  revenue  of  the 
Pious  Fund  was  lost,  as  the  fund  itself  had  been  confiscated 
to  uses  of  the  government.  The  annual  stipend  of  four 
hundred  dollars  to  each  missionary  came  but  fitfully ;  the 
mission  vessels  with  annual  stores  and  provisions  ceased 
to  be  regular  in  their  visits;  the  cattle  and  produce  of  the 
mission  lands  were  taken  by  the  troops  in  the  presidios  on 
mere  promises  to  pay,  which  were  never  realized.  Noth- 
ing proves  so  well  on  what  deep  and  broad  foundations 
the  success  and  the  wealth  of  the  missions  were  founded 
and  built  as  that  they  were  able  to  subsist — nay,  to  grow 
and  prosper — in  the  midst  of  all  these  losses.  It  was  pre- 
cisely in  the  very  year  the  secularization  decree  was  put 
into  operation  that  the  high- water  mark  of  the  missions' 
prosperity  was  reached,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  statistics 
given  above. 

The  missionaries  quarreled  with  the  government  not  as 
to  the  plan  itself — it  was  general  throughout  the  Spanish 
dominions — but  as  to  the  seasonableness,  the  opportune- 
ness, of  putting  it  into  operation.  The  government  was  in 
a  greater  hurry  than  the  missionaries  Judged  feasible.  The 
missionaries  were  certainly  in  good  faith  ;  moreover,  they 
were  best  capable  of  judging  when  the  times  were  ripe  for 
the  change.  Allowing,  even,  that  they  thought  the  old 
system  best  and  that  they  fought  the  incoming  of  the  new, 
they  may  have  had  reasons  which  were  prime  with  them ; 
and  after  our  long  struggle  with  the  Indian  problem  we 
should  not  hurry  in  blaming  them.  Civilization  is  a  slow 
process.  How  many  centuries  did  it  not  take  to  bring  the 
barbarians  who  overran  the  Roman  empire  into  Christian 
civilization?     Now  to  force  our  civilization  upon  a  race 


RUIN  OF  THE  MISSIONS. 


109 


that  is  in  the  stage  of  savagery  without  due  time  for  ab- 
sorption is  to  commit  a  mistake.  The  preparation  of  the 
Indian  for  citizenship  must  be  a  slow  work,  the  work  of 
centuries.  I  think  that  time  will  show  that  no  more  suc- 
cessful plan  for  this  result  has  ever  been  devised  than  that 
of  the  Jesuits  in  Paraguay  and  the  Franciscans  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

The  secularization,  because  too  sudden  and  preceded 
by  no  preparation  on  the  part  of  the  diocesan  or  the 
Franciscan  authorities,  was  disastrous  to  the  church  in 
California.  Dwindle,  in  his  "Colonial  History,"  says: 
"  The  secularization  laws,  whose  ostensible  purpose  was 
to  convert  the  missionary  establishments  into  Indian  pueb- 
los, the  mission  churches  into  parish  churches,  and  to 
elevate  the  Christianized  Indians  to  the  rank  of  citizens, 
were,  after  all,  executed  in  such  a  manner  that  they  re- 
sulted only  in  the  plunder  of  the  missions  and  their  com- 
plete ruin,  and  in  the  demoralization  and  dispersion  of  the 
Christianized  Indians.  There  was  an  understanding-  be- 
tween  the  government  of  Mexico  and  the  leading  men  of 
California  that  the  government  might  absorb  the  Pious 
Fund,  while  its  representatives  in  California  should  appro- 
priate the  local  wealth  of  the  missions  by  the  rapid  and 
sure  process  of  administering  their  temporalities." 

And  so  it  came  to  pass.  The  lands  were  handed  over 
to  the  Indians,  only  to  be  neglected  and  to  revert  to  their 
wild,  uncultivated  condition.  The  cattle  were  divided 
among  them  and  the  administrators  for  their  own  perso- 
nal profit.  The  Catholic  Indian  population  in  1836  was 
30,000;  close  upon  a  million  of  live  stock  belonged  to 
them;  the  annual  crop  was  125,000  bushels  of  wheat; 
soap,  leather,  wine,  oil,  cotton,  hemp,  tobacco,  salt,  and 
soda  were  largely  cultivated  and  exported ;  a  million 
dollars  cash,  annually  flowing  into  the  province,  was  the 


no  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  viii. 

reward  of  industry  in  those  articles,  while  another  million 
came  from  other  sources.  Extensive  gardens,  orchards, 
vineyards,  that  went  to  the  use  and  comfort  of  the  natives, 
surrounded  the  missions.  Into  these  holy  retreats  were 
gathered  almost  all  the  indigenous  inhabitants  of  southern 
and  central  California,  Christianized  and  civilized,  and  all 
this  was  the  fruit  of  the  labors  of  the  humble  sons  of  St. 
Francis  during  sixty- five  years  of  missionary  existence. 

No  sooner  was  the  decree  of  secularization  reenacted  by 
the  Mexican  Congress  (1833)  and  put  into  force  by  the 
governor  of  California  (1834)  than  a  great  change  came 
over  this  happy  scene.  Eight  years  later  the  Catholic 
Indians  had  dwindled  from  30,654  to  4450;  for  instance, 
San  Rafael  could  count  but  20,  San  Francisco  Solano  but 
70,  yet  the  former  had  contained  1250  and  the  latter  1300. 
In  1842  there  were  only  60,000  cattle  in  the  missions,  and 
only  40,000  bushels  of  \vheat  were  raised.  Wilkes,  in  his 
"Exploring  Expedition,"  says:  "The  country  was  de- 
prived of  its  religious  establishments,  upon  which  its  society 
and  good  order  were  founded.  Anarchy  and  confusion 
began  to  reign.  Some  of  the  missions  were  deserted,  their 
property  was  dissipated,  and  the  Indians  turned  out  to 
seek  their  native  wilds.  The  property  became  a  prey  to 
the  rapacity  of  the  governor,  the  administrators,  and  their 
needy  officers." 

No  arrangements  had  been  made  to  replace  the  Fran- 
ciscans^ Many  sadly  bade  farewell  to  the  homes  they  had 
made  so  happy,  and  retired  to  convents  in  Mexico.  The 
neophytes  in  several  instances  were  abandoned  and  de- 
prived of  the  services  of  religion.  Some  of  the  mission- 
aries begged  to  remain,  and  were  allowed  to  do  so  on  their 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  republic  of  Mexico. 
But  poverty,  neglect,  insult,  became  their  share.  The  de- 
pendents who  formerly  lived  on  their  chanty,  the  menials 


THE  FIRST  BISIIor  OF  MOXTEREV.  l  i  I 

of  the  civil  authority,  in  whose  care  their  temporalities  and 
lands  were  intrusted  for  distribution  to  the  Indians,  heaped 
indignities  on  the  friars  who  remained.  Some  hardly  found 
means  of  subsistence  ;  and  one,  Father  Sarria,  of  the  mission 
of  Soledad,  is  known  to  have  died  of  starvation  in  1838, 

Meanwhile  the  white  population,  mostly  Spanish,  was 
on  the  increase.  In  1790  it  was  990;  in  1800,  1800;  in 
1 8 10,  2130;  in  1830,  4250;  in  1840,  5780.  In  order  to 
supply  these  people  with  the  ministrations  of  the  church, 
and  also,  no  doubt,  to  stay  the  total  extinction  of  the  mis- 
sions, the  Mexican  Congress  resolved  to  put  Lower  and 
Upper  California  in  charge  of  a  resident  bishop.  Had 
the  step  been  taken  earlier  the  missions  might  have  been 
saved;  for  a  bishop  might  have  had  time  to  prepare  for 
the  change  from  the  religious  to  the  diocesan  clergy.  The 
remedy,  as  far  as  the  Indian  missions  were  concerned,  was 
applied  after  the  agony  had  set  in ;  that  is  to  say,  too  late. 
The  choice  fell  on  Don  Francisco  Garcia  Diego,  a  Fran- 
ciscan, who  had  been  professor  of  theology  in  his  convent 
in  Mexico  and  Commissary  Prefect  of  the  missions  of  Up- 
per California.  The  appointment  was  confirmed  in  1840 
by  Gregory  XVI.  The  sum  of  $3000  was  given  him  for  an 
outfit,  and  an  annual  salary  of  $6000  was  promised.  He 
fixed  his  residence  in  Santa  Barbara,  where  he  arrived  in  De- 
cember, 1 84 1,  and  planned  to  build  a  residence,  a  seminary, 
and  a  cathedral.  But  the  funds  expected  from  the  gov- 
ernment were  not  forthcoming,  and  the  work  lingered  until 
his  death  (1846).  That  same  year  the  United  States  flag 
was  run  up  in  Monterey  and  San  Francisco  by  Fremont 
and  Stockton,  and  two  years  later  (1848)  California  was 
annexed  to  the  United  States. 

Our  survey  of  the  work  of  the  Spanish  church  in  the 
territory  of  the  United   States  is  at  an  end.      In  time  it 


112  THE  ROMAN  CArilOLlCS.  [CiLvr.  viii. 

extended  from  1520  to  1840,  and  covers,  therefore,  over 
three  hundred  years.  In  space  it  extended  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  south  of  the  thirty-eighth  degree 
ot  latitude,  and  covered  our  present  States  of  Florida, 
Alabama,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  California. 
Over  a  hundred  thousand  of  the  aborigines  were  brought  to 
the  knowledge  of  Christianity,  and  introduced,  if  not  into 
the  palace,  at  least  into  the  antechamber  of  civilization.  It 
was  a  glorious  work,  and  the  recital  of  it  impresses  us  by 
the  vastness  and  success  of  the  toil.  Yet,  as  we  look 
around  to-day,  we  can  find  nothing  of  it  that  remains. 
Names  of  saints  in  melodious  Spanish  stand  out  from  maps 
in  all  that  section  where  the  Spanish  monk  trod,  toiled, 
and  died.  A  few  thousand  Christian  Indians,  descendants 
of  those  they  converted  and  civilized,  still  survive  in  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona,  and  that  is  all.  It  is  well  worth 
while  to  inquire  what  made  the  success,  what  the  ruin,  of 
the  Spanish  missions. 

What  made  their  success?  I  answer:  the  blood  of  mar- 
tyrs ;  the  zeal  of  missionaries ;  the  reduction  of  the  roving 
tribes  into  fixed  communities;  the  industrial  training  im- 
parted to  the  Indians;  the  patriarchal  and  paternal  char- 
acter of  the  friars'  government ;  the  generosity  of  Spain 
in  furnishing  the  temporal  means  of  subsistence;  the  mili- 
tary protection  given  the  missionaries ;  the  separation  of 
the  Indians  from  the  whites  even  to  the  difference  of  their 
spiritual  guardians,  the  whites,  as  a  rule,  being  under  dio- 
cesan, the  Indians  under  religious  priests. 

What  caused  their  ruin?  I  name  as  external  causes  the 
wilder  roving  tribes  that  remained  heathen ;  the  English 
colonists  of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  in  the  Southeastern 
missions ;  the  revolution  of  Mexico,  and  the  consequent 
confiscation  of  funds  and  secularization  of  missions  in  the 
Southwestern  missions;  in  both  regions  the  withdrawal  of 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE. 


113 


that  military  protection  that  had  been  so  influential  in 
building  them  up.  I  name  as  internal  causes  the  want  of 
gradual  preparation  in  the  passage  of  the  Indian  tribes  from 
tutelage  to  independent  manhood,  and  in  the  transfer  of 
the  missions  from  the  religious  orders  to  the  diocesan 
clergy ;  the  tardiness  in  appointing  bishops,  who  alone 
could  prepare  for  the  transfer  and  create  the  diocesan 
clergy  that  would  take  the  place  of  the  early  missionaries. 
This  one  glorious  truth  stands  prominent :  the  Spaniards 
in  the  United  States  did  not  drive  the  natives  from  their 
homes,  or  oppress  them,  much  less  destroy  them.  These 
accusations,  if  made  at  all,  must  fall  on  some  other  race. 


Part  1 1.     The  French  Missions. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

FRANCE    IN    NORTH    AMERICA. 

The  missionaries  of  France  labored  in  our  Northern 
States  along  the  Hne  that  divides  them  from  Canada.  The 
Eastern  missions  were  in  Maine,  the  central  missions  in 
northern  New  York,  the  Western  missions  on  the  shores  of 
Lakes  Huron,  Michigan,  and  Superior.  When  the-  French 
had  discovered  and  descended  the  Mississippi,  they  estab- 
lished missions  along  the  river  as  far  south  as  its  mouth, 
and  called  the  region  Louisiana.  It  is  from  the  southern 
point  of  Lake  Michigan  that  their  posts  trended  to  the 
south,  cutting  in  twain  the  Spanish  line  of  missions  from 
Florida  to  the  Pacific.  For  convenience'  sake  we  include 
Louisiana  in  the  Western  missions.  The  head  of  Lake 
Superior  and  the  Mississippi  are  the  western  boundary-line 
of  the  French  occupation. 

But  before  detailing  the  work  of  the  missionaries  of 
France  it  may  be  useful  to  sketch  briefly  the  westward 
march  of  her  explorers  and  traders,  in  order  to  map  out 
the  field  of  work.  When  the  Cabots  in  1497,  or,  as  seems 
more  probable  from  late  researches,  in  1494,  reached 
the  Western  land  that  they  mistook,  like  Columbus,  for 
part  of  the  empire  of  the  Grand  Khan,  they  touched  in 

114 


EARLY  FRENCH  EXPLORERS.  \  15 

reality  the  island  which,  at  a  very  early  date,  was  called 
Cape  Breton  Island.  "  This  name,"  says  Parkman,  in 
"  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World,"  "  found  on  the 
oldest  maps,  is  a  memorial  of  very  early  French  voyages." 
There  is  a  tradition  that,  in  the  year  1488,  Cousin,  a 
navigator  of  Dieppe,  was  blown  by  winds  and  carried  by 
currents  from  Africa  westward  to  an  unknown  shore, 
where  he  descried  the  mouth  of  a  large  river.  For  this 
tradition  no  proof  exists  beyond  the  claim  of  a  French 
writer.  The  proof,  if  ever  there  was  any,  perished  prob- 
ably in  the  bombardment  of  Dieppe  (1694).  What  is 
more  certain  is  that  Norman,  Breton,  and  Basque  fisher- 
men frequented  at  a  very  early  date  the  banks  of  New- 
foundland. There  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  fishing 
existed  before  the  voyage  of  Cabot.  There  is  evidence 
that  it  began  as  early  as  the  year  1504.  Ever  after  this 
date,  not  only  French,  but  English,  Spanish,  and  Portu- 
guese fishing-fleets  made  yearly  resorts  to  the  banks.  In 
1506  one  Denis  of  Honfleur  explored  the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence;  two  years  later  Aubert  of  Dieppe  followed  in 
his  tracks ;  and  in  1 5  1 8  Baron  de  Lery  made  an  abortive 
attempt  at  settlement  on  Sable  Island.  These  were  pri- 
vate enterprises,  undertaken  without  the  knowledge  and 
consent  of  the  French  crown. 

It  was  Francis  I.,  the  rival  of  the  Spanish  Charles  V., 
who  began  the  national  movement  for  a  share  in  the  trans- 
atlantic world.  Among  the  corsairs  in  the  service  of 
France  at  that  time  was  Giovanni  da  Verrazano,  a  Floren- 
tine, who  in  1523  had  captured  a  Spanish  galleon  on  its 
way  from  Mexico  to  Spain  with  a  freight  of  gold.  Early 
the  next  year  he  crossed  the  Atlantic  with  one  ship  and 
fifty  men,  touched  the  American  coast  near  Cape  Fear  in 
North  Carolina,  skirted  it  northward  as  far  as  latitude  50°, 
noticing  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Hudson,  and  landed  on  the 


1  1 6  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  ix. 

coast  of  Rhode  Island.  A  minute  description  of  the  voy- 
age exists  in  a  letter  of  his  to  the  king  of  France,  now  in 
the  library  of  Florence.  The  Majollo  map  of  1527,  in  the 
Ambrosian  Library,  Milan,  marks  the  general  line  of  his 
survey,  and  an  earlier  map  of  1524,  made  by  his  brother, 
Hieronymus  da  Verrazano,  preserved  in  the  Borgian  Mu- 
seum, is  further  confirmation  of  the  expedition. 

There  is  frequent  mention  in  French  writers  of  that  pe- 
riod of  the  city  of  Norumbega.  Jean  Allefonse  (1545) 
described  the  river  on  which  this  famed  city  was  located, 
and  the  description  applies  to  no  river  on  the  coast  except 
the  Hudson.  The  claim  is  urged  that  French  traders,  long 
before  the  advent  of  the  Dutch,  had  built  some  kind  of 
post  on  the  Hudson,  where  they  trafficked  in  furs  with  the 
Indians  of  the  interior.  But  any  one  who  studies  chapter 
vi.  of  volume  iii.  of  the  "  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of 
America,"  edited  by  Justin  Winsor,  will  be  slow  to  pin  his 
faith  to  any  identification  of  Norumbega,  much  less  to 
adopt  the  theory  lately  put  forth  by  Eben  Norton  Hors- 
ford,^  that  it  was  located  on  the  Charles  River,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Watertown  and  Waltham,  Mass.  This  mythical 
city  seems  to  have  played  in  the  Northeast  the  legendary 
role  played  in  the  Southwest  by  the  Seven  Cities  and 
Ouivira. 

Among  the  favorites  of  Francis  I.  was  Philippe  de  Brion- 
Chabot,  admiral  of  France.  He  conceived  the  plan  of 
following  up  the  discoveries  of  Verrazano,  and  he  found 
in  St.  Malo,  the  home  of  a  race  of  hardy  mariners,  a  fit 
agent  for  his  design — Jacques  Cartier.  This  bold  sailor, 
in  a  first  voyage  (1534),  ascended  the  St.  Lawrence  as  far 
as  the  island  of  Anticosti ;  in  a  second  voyage,  entering 
the  bay  he  called  St.  Lawrence  from  the  saint  of  the  day — 

1  "  The  Discovery  of  the  Ancient  City  of  Norumbega,"  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  1890. 


J  ACQ  UES   CA  R  TIER.  I  I  7 

a  name  that  passed  to  the  river  in  1535 — he  sailed  beyond 
the  site  of  Quebec,  called  by  the  Indians  Stadacone,  and 
ascended  to  a  great  Indian  village,  Hochelaga,  back  of 
which  rose  a  majestic  mound  that  Cartier  named  Mount 
Royal.  He  had  christened  Montreal.  A  rigorous  cli- 
mate, a  savage  people,  a  soil  barren  of  gold  and  grain,  rich 
only  in  fish  and  fur,  were  the  sole  allurements  to  this  new 
land. 

Yet  there  was  found  a  nobleman,  Sieur  de  Roberval, 
anxious  to  colonize  it.  He  chose  Cartier  as  his  captain- 
general.  "  We  have  resolved,"  says  the  king  in  the  grant 
to  De  Roberval,  "  to  send  him  [Cartier]  again  to  the  lands 
of  Canada  and  Hochelaga,  which  form  the  extremity  of 
Asia  toward  the  west."  The  object  of  the  enterprise, 
according  to  the  royal  commission,  was  discovery,  settle- 
ment, and  the  conversion  of  Indians.  In  May,  1541,  Car- 
tier  for  the  third  time  started  for  New  France ;  Roberval 
was  to  follow  with  additional  ships.  Again  he  ascended 
to  Hochelaga,  and  beyond  to  the  rapids  above  that  place. 
But  as  Roberval  was  not  appearing,  Cartier  started  for 
home  April,  1542,  and  thus  France's  first  attempt  to  plant 
a  colony  in  the  New  World  failed. 

We  omit,  as  not  belonging  to  the  matter  in  hand,  the 
French  attempts  at  colonization  in  the  southern  portion  of 
the  United  States,  on  the  coast  of  Florida ;  we  have  seen 
in  a  former  chapter  how  they  were  foiled  by  the  Spaniards. 
It  was  fully  sixty  years  after  Cartier's  final  return  from  the 
St.  Lawrence,  when  the  wars  of  religion  had  been  brought 
to  an  end  in  France  by  Henry  IV.,  that  France  succeeded 
in  planting  a  colony  on  the  shores  of  the  New  World. 
Happily  she  found  a  fit  agent  in  one  who  was  a  soldier,  a 
navigator,  a  courtier,  a  scientist,  an  enthusiastic  Catholic, 
a  knight  as  high-minded  and  brave  as  Bayard  or  Dugues- 
clin — Samuel    de   Champlain.      His   first    voyage    to    the 


I  1 8  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  ix. 

Northwest  (1613)  was  made  in  the  service  of  De  Chastes, 
who  had  received  from  the  king  a  patent  to  colonize  New 
France.  This  voyage  was  meant  to  be  one  of  exploration 
merely,  and  extended  up  the  St.  Lawrence  as  high  as  the 
rapids  above  Hochelaga. 

On  his  return  (1604)  Champlain  found  his  employer 
dead,  and  Pierre  du  Guast,  Sieur  du  Monts,  invested  with 
the  right  and  monopoly  of  the  colonization  scheme.  The 
patent  conceded  to  this  nobleman  comprised  the  country 
from  Montreal  to  Philadelphia,  and  named  it  Acadia,  a 
name  that  was  restricted  afterward  to  Nova  Scotia.  It 
was  on  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  first  at  the  mouth  of  the  St. 
John  River,  on  an  island  now  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
Maine,  and  afterward  on  the  opposite  coast,  at  Port  Royal 
(now  Annapolis),  in  Nova  Scotia,  that  Sieur  de  Monts 
planted  his  colony  (1604).  It  was  short-lived,  for  it  broke 
up  in  1607.  During  its  existence  Champlain,  who  was  a 
member  of  it  as  royal  geographer,  surveyed  our  northern 
coasts  as  far  south  as  Boston  Harbor  with  most  minute 
accuracy.  In  16 10  Jean  de  Biencour,  Sieur  de  Pourtrin- 
court,  renewed  the  attempt  to  plant  a  colony  in  Nova 
Scotia,  and  with  some  success,  as  we  shall  see. 

But  the  great  French  colony  that  created  a  New  France 
in  America  w^as  to  be  on  the  great  river,  the  main  artery 
and  the  highway  of  the  North  American  continent — the 
St.  Lawrence ;  and  it  was  Champlain  who  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  colony  on  the  rocky  eminence  of  Quebec  in 
the  year  1608.  During  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  popu- 
lation of  the  new  city  did  not  exceed  one  hundred  persons. 
It  was  a  mere  trading-post,  with  a  governor  and  some 
soldiers,  maintained  under  a  royal  patent  by  a  company 
of  French  merchants  who  held  the  monopoly  of  the  fur- 
trade.     Six  years  after  the  founding  of  Quebec — that  is 


CENTERS  AND  ROUTES.  119 

to  say,  in  16 14 — four  Recollects  (a  branch  of  the  Francis- 
can order)  came  out  to  New  France  to  attend  to  the 
spiritual  wants  of  the  settlers  and  convert  the  surrounding 
tribes. 

From  the  very  beginning  the  chief  feature  of  the  French 
colonies  is  pronunent :  the  triple  alliance  of  the  soldier,  the 
trader,  and  the  priest.  It  was  on  trade,  not  on  agriculture, 
that  French  colonization  was  based ;  therein  you  will  find 
the  secret  of  its  expansion  when  undisturbed,  of  its  weak- 
ness when  attacked.  In  1625  came  to  Quebec  the  first 
band  of  the  Jesuits,  whom,  it  appears,  the  Recollects  had 
called  to  their  aid.  In  1628  Quebec  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  English,  but  was  restored  to  the  French  in  1632. 
"With  the  restoration  the  Jesuits  alone  returned,  and  thence- 
forth made  Quebec  the  center  of  their  work  in  North 
America.  Ten  years  later  (1644)  Montreal  was  founded 
by  Maisonneuve  ;  with  him  came  the  Sulpitians,  who  made 
Montreal  their  headquarters.  These  two  cities  and  these 
two  religious  orders  were  the  sources  whence  flowed  into 
Canada  and  overflowed  into  our  northern  territory  the 
stream  of  Catholic  truth  and  life.  The  tracing  of  this 
overflow  constitutes  the  history  of  the  French  missions  in 
the  United  States. 

The  two  main  routes  by  which  the  Catholic  activity  of 
Montreal  and  Quebec  penetrated  into  the  territory  of  the 
present  United  States  are  plain  on  our  map.  The  first 
was  threaded  by  Champlain  himself.  He  ascended  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  Ottawa,  up  the  Ottawa  to  Lake 
Nipissing,  thence  by  a  portage  and  French  River  into 
Lake  Huron,  whence  the  way  was  clear  and  easy  to  the 
western  end  of  Lake  Superior  and  the  southern  end  of 
Lake  Michigan ;  not  far  from  both  these  points  were  the 
sources  of  streams  that  flowed  into  the  Mississippi.      Had 


120  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ix. 

he  not  feared  to  encounter  on  his  way  the  terrible  Iro- 
quois, he  might  have  reached  the  West  by  another  route, 
the  St.  Lawrence,  Lake  Ontario,  Lake  Erie,  Detroit,  Lakes 
Huron,  Michigan,  and  Superior.  But  this  latter  highway 
was  practicable  only  after  Frontenac  had  beaten  the  Iro- 
quois and  La  Salle  had  located  his  continuous  line  of  posts 
from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Thus  did 
the  French  belt  the  interior  of  North  America  from 
Quebec  to  New  Orleans  with  their  forts,  trading-posts,  and 
missions,  and  outflanked  the  English  colonies  of  the  At- 
lantic coast.  To  the  student  of  geography  and  history  it 
will  ever  be  an  unfailing  wonder  how  that  line,  broad  and 
solid,  along  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  lakes,  the  Mississippi, 
reaching  eastward  to  the  head-waters  of  all  the  confluents 
of  the  great  river,  was  ever  broken,  and  how  France  sur- 
rendered so  easily  her  American  empire  to  the  power  that 
snatched  from  her  her  Indian  empire. 

It  took  years  to  form  and  complete  that  line.  Ex- 
plorers, as  adventurous  and  as  lion-hearted  as  ever  was 
Cortez  or  Pizarro  or  De  Soto  or  Coronado  or  Oiiate,  con- 
tributed each  a  link  during  three  quarters  of  a  century, 
from  the  day  when  Champlain  pushed  his  canoe  into  the 
Ottawa  (1613)  to  the  day  when  heroic  La  Salle  was  robbed 
of  life  in  the  swamps  of  Texas  (1687).  It  w^ill  suffice  here 
to  name  them:  Nicollet  (1634),  who  paddled  into  Sault 
Ste.  Marie,  Mackinaw,  Green  Bay,  down  the  Fox  River, 
and  perhaps  the  Wisconsin,  on  the  way  to  the  Mississippi ; 
Des  Groseillers  and  Radisson,  who  in  1659  canoed  along 
the  southern  shore  of  Lake  Superior  and  visited  tribes  on 
the  Black,  Chippewa,  and  St.  Croix  rivers;  Joliet,  with  his 
no  less  adventurous  companion  Marquette,  who  in  1673 
entered  the  Mississippi  by  way  of  Green  Bay,  the  Fox, 
and  the  Wisconsin,  and  floated  down  to  the  Arkansas ; 
Duluth,  who  in  1679  penetrated  beyond  the  western  ex- 


THE  HOME   OF   THE  IROQUOIS.  121 

tremity  of  Lake  Superior,  where  a  city  immortalizes  his 
name,  four  hundred  miles  into  the  interior  of  Minnesota, 
and  rescued  Hennepin  from  his  Sioux  captors;  finally.  La 
Salle,  the  boldest  of  them  all,  who,  between  1676  and 
1687,  in  theory  carried  the  empire  of  France  from  the 
crest  of  the  Alleghanies  to  that  of  the  Rockies,  and  in  fact 
from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  who  planned 
a  line  of  posts  from  the  foot  of  Ontario,  through  Niagara, 
Detroit,  Mackinaw,  St.  Joseph,  Peoria,  and  the  salient 
points  on  the  lower  Mississippi,  to  that  spot  in  the  delta 
which  in  two  of  our  wars  proved  to  be  the  key  to  final 
victory  ;  who  did  all  this  amid  difficulties  that  would  appall 
a  less  brave  heart,  and  died  in  the  doing,  bequeathing  to 
his  country  an  empire  almost  as  vast,  if  not  as  rich,  as  the 
India  of  Dupleix  and  Lally-Tollendal. 

Such  were  the  western  routes  that  led  into  the  interior 
of  North  America  and  down  to  the  blue,  warm  waters  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  There  was  another  route  from  Can- 
ada to  the  Atlantic,  as  well  if  not  better  known  in  the 
history  of  French  colonization.  Follow  on  the  map  the 
black  line  running  south  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  New 
York  Bay — a  line  made  by  the  Richelieu  River,  Lake 
Champlain,  Lake  George,  and  the  Hudson  ;  a  continuous 
water-way,  with  only  a  short  portage.  Along  this  line  were 
the  fortunes  of  France  in  America  fought  many  a  year  with 
varying  vicissitudes  of  defeat  and  victory,  and  finally  lost; 
along  this  line  did  American  independence  waver  as  the 
continental  troops  advanced  or  retreated.  Where  the 
head-waters  of  the  Richelieu  and  the  head-waters  of  the 
Hudson  meet  is  the  heart  of  half  the  continent  east  of  the 
Mississippi.  There  dwelt  the  dreaded  Iroquois,  the  master 
race  of  North  America.  The  total  population  of  the  Iro- 
quois Confederacy  did  not  exceed  twelve  thousand  souls. 
Yet  their  supremacy  was  recognized  by  the  tribes  of  New 


122  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  ix. 

England  ;  they  exacted  tribute  from  those  of  Long  Island  ; 
they  forayed  down  on  the  Chesapeake  ;  they  swept  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  the  lakes;  they  drove  the  Algonquins, 
Hurons,  and  Ottawas  to  the  head- waters  of  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  they  commanded  where  Chicago  now  stands ;  and 
the  Southern  tribes  from  Georgia  to  Louisiana  trembled  at 
their  name  and  fled  at  their  war-whoop. 

Their  position  had  much  to  do  in  making  them  what 
they  were.  The  head-waters  of  the  Mohawk,  which  pass 
through  the  Hudson  to  the  Atlantic,  are  interwoven  here 
with  streams  that  flow  into  the  St.  Lawrence,  with  streams 
that  pass  through  the  Susquehanna  to  the  Chesapeake, 
with  streams  that  pass  through  the  Ohio  into  the  Missis- 
sippi, with  streams  that  lose  themselves  in  Lakes  Ontario 
and  Erie.  Wherever  he  wished  to  be — east,  west,  north, 
south — the  Iroquois  had  but  to  launch  his  canoe,  and  he 
was  there  with  the  swiftness  of  current  and  paddle ;  from 
his  home  nature's  roads  led  him  to  every  quarter  of  the 
compass.  The  European  race  to  which  such  a  people  gave 
its  friendship  and  aid  must  conquer  in  the  end  and  drive 
out  the  nation  that  had  earned  its  hostility.  The  one  great 
mistake  that  France  committed  from  the  start  was  to  earn 
that  hostility. 

Little  did  Champlain  dream  that  he  was  sealing  the  fate 
of  France  when,  on  the  29th  of  July,  1609,  at  Ticonderoga, 
between  Lake  George  and  Crown  Point,  he  aimed  his 
arquebuse  at  an  Iroquois  chief  and  laid  him  in  the  dust. 
The  echo  of  that  shot  rang  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
in  wars  almost  continuous  against  Iroquois  and  English, 
and  died  out  only  when  Montcalm  fell  on  Abraham's 
Plains  in  1759.  France  linked  her  fortunes  with  the 
Hurons,  England  hers  with  the  Iroquois.  The  Iroquois 
exterminated  the  Hurons,  weakened  the  French ;  England, 
combined  with  her  savage  allies,  finished  the  work,  and 


THE  FRENCH  MISSIONS.  123 

drove  France  from  North  America.  But  if  the  domina- 
tion of  France  has  disappeared  from  our  soil,  she  has  left 
in  the  annals  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  North  America 
imperishable  monuments  of  the  zeal  and  the  heroism  of 
her  missionaries.  To  these,  so  far  as  the  United  States  is 
concerned,  we  now  turn  our  attention. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    MISSIONS    IN    MAINE. 

The  earliest  religious  establishment  on  the  coast  of  Maine 
was  founded  in  1604,  Ste.  Croix,  on  an  island  now  known 
as  Douchet  Island ;  it  is  a  few  miles  within  the  mouth  of 
the  St.  Croix  River,  which  empties  into  Passamaquoddy 
Bay.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  when  the  com- 
missioners of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  were 
endeavoring  to  define  the  St.  Croix  River,  which  by  treaty 
had  been  fixed  as  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  American 
Republic,  this  island  played  an  important  part.  The  dis- 
covery in  1 797  of  the  foundation  stones  of  De  Monts's 
houses  on  Douchet  Island,  with  large  trees  growing  above 
them,  did  away  with  all  doubt  as  to  the  site  of  the  colony 
of  Ste.  Croix.  In  a  survey  of  1 798  the  island  is  called 
Bone  Island,  and  it  has  been  called  sometimes,  because  of 
its  position,  Neutral  Island. 

To  Pierre  du  Guast,  Sieur  de  Monts,  was  granted  a 
patent  by  the  king  of  France  (1604)  to  colonize  La  Cadie 
or  L'Acadie,  a  region  defined  as  extending  from  the 
fortieth  to  the  forty-sixth  degree  of  latitude,  that  is,  from 
Philadelphia  to  Montreal  and  beyond.  The  foundation  of 
the  enterprise  was  the  monopoly  of  the  fur-trade,  all 
former  grants  being  annulled  in  its  favor.  Though  a  Cal- 
vinist,  De  Monts  bound  himself  to  have  the  natives  in- 
structed in  the  Catholic  religion,  and  when  he  sailed  he 

124 


I'ORT  ROYAL. 


125 


took  with  him  two  Catholic  priests ;  the  name  of  one  only 
has  come  down  to  us — Nicholas  Aubrey.  Champlain,  who 
was  attached  to  the  expedition  as  royal  geographer,  has 
left  a  sketch  of  the  settlement,  showing  a  chapel,  cemetery, 
and  priest's  house.  It  is  recorded  that  the  Rev.  Nicholas 
Aubrey  did  no  more  than  attend  to  the  spiritual  needs  of 
the  Catholic  colonists,  though  no  doubt  he  must  have  come 
in  contact  with  the  surrounding  Indians,  and  must  have 
tried  to  instill  in  their  minds  some  truths  of  the  gospel. 
After  one  year  De  Monts,  dissatisfied  with  the  location, 
packed  up  the  belongings  of  the  little  colony,  eighty  per- 
sons all  told,  and  sailed  across  the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  a  spot 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Basin,  opposite  Goat  Island,  a 
little  below  the  mouth  of  the  river  Annapolis.  The  new 
settlement  took  the  name  of  Port  Royal ;  the  location  is 
out  of  the  United  States,  in  Nova  Scotia.  It  was  short- 
lived, for  early  in  1607  De  Monts's  grant  was  rescinded; 
money  spent  freely  at  court  by  his  rivals  had  broken  down 
the  monopoly  in  the  fur-trade  on  which  the  grant  was 
based  and  which  gave  it  all  its  value.  The  Port  Royal 
colonists,  on  hearing  the  news,  sailed  for  France,  and  ar- 
rived in  St.  Malo  October,  1607.  Thus  ended  the  first 
French  attempt  to  settle  in  the  New  World. 

Among  the  colonists  was  Jean  de  Biencour,  Sieur  de 
Pourtrincourt.  To  him  De  Monts  had  sublet  Port  Royal 
under  his  grant.  The  subletting,  of  course,  lost  all  value 
with  the  loss  of  the  main  grant  to  De  Monts.  But  Pour- 
trincourt, undaunted,  resolved  to  make  Acadia  a  New 
France  ;  and  as  soon  as  he  landed  in  France  obtained  from 
the  king  a  confirmation  of  the  rights  formerly  held  by  him 
from  De  Monts.  The  king,  however,  insisted  as  a  condition 
sine  qua  non  that  the  grantee  should  take  out  Jesuits  with 
him  for  the  conversion  of  the  natives.  Peter  Biard  was  called 
for  this  purpose  from  a  professor's  chair  in  Lyons.      Pour- 


126  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  X. 

trincourt  was  a  good  enough  Catholic,  but  did  not  wish  to 
have  the  company  of  a  Jesuit  in  his  colony.  While  Biard 
was  waiting  in  Bordeaux  to  be  notified  that  the  vessel  was 
ready  for  sailing,  the  baron  slipped  away  from  Dieppe  with 
a  secular  priest  on  board.  La  Fleche  by  name.  Port 
Royal  was  found  in  good  condition  ;  its  houses  were  occu- 
pied by  the  newcomers.  The  priest  at  once  set  to  work 
among  the  natives,  and  a  pretty  full  register  of  baptisms 
was  sent  back  to  France  in  the  returning  ship,  under  com- 
mand of  Pourtrincourt's  son,  a  lad  of  eighteen.  The  intent 
of  the  baptismal  register  was  to  show  that  good  missionary 
work  could  be  done  without  the  Jesuits. 

But  they  were  not  to  be  got  rid  of  so  easily.  They 
had  at  court  a  powerful  patroness,  a  woman  of  deep  relig- 
ious spirit,  who  believed  that  the  best  interests  of  the 
church  required  the  presence  of  the  Jesuits  in  the  New 
World.  She  was  lady  of  honor  at  court,  Antoinette  de 
Pons,  Marquise  de  Guercheville.  Pourtrincourt  had  bar- 
gained with  two  merchants.  Huguenots  in  religion,  to  equip 
and  load  the  vessel  that  was  to  go  back ;  they  were  part- 
ners in  the  profits  of  the  enterprise.  They  swore  that  the 
two  Jesuits — Biard  had  now  a  companion,  Enemond  Masse 
— should  never  sail  in  any  vessel  in  which  they  had  an  in- 
terest. Madame  de  Guercheville  stepped  in  at  this  point 
of  the  proceedings,  bought  out  the  interest  of  the  two 
Huguenots,  advanced  in  addition  two  thousand  livres  to 
Pourtrincourt,  and  turned  her  investment  over  to  the  Jesuit 
Province  of  France  for  the  future  support  of  the  missions. 
In  June,  1 6 1 1 ,  Fathers  Biard  and  Masse  set  sail  for  the  New 
World.  They  were  the  first  of  a  band  of  religious  heroes 
who  have  left  on  this  land  the  marks  of  their  toil  and  their 
blood  from  Maine  to  the  Mississippi.  Already  their  brothers 
had  preached  and  died  in  Japan,  had  taught  astronomy  at 
the  court  of  Peking,  had  argued  and  prevailed  with  the 


ST.  SAUVEUR.  127 

Brahmans  of  India,  had  carried  the  cross  into  Abyssinia, 
preached  in  Brazil,  shed  their  blood  in  Florida,  created  a 
Christian  republic  in  Paraguay ;  and  now  these  heroes  of 
the  cross  were  about  to  renew  among  the  tribes  of  North 
America  the  marvelous  deeds  with  which  they  had  filled 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Was  ever  seen  on  earth  so  glorious 
a  band  of  men  as  those  early  Jesuits  in  the  first  fervor  of 
their  foundation? 

While  the  newcomers  proceeded  to  make  themselves  at 
home,  and  Biard  attacked  the  difficulties  of  the  Micmac 
language  as  best  he  could,  Pourtrincourt  the  elder  returned 
to  France  to  look  after  his  affairs,  leaving  the  colony  in 
command  of  his  son.  On  his  arrival  in  France  he  sold  to 
Madame  de  Guercheville — for  he  was  sorely  in  need  of 
funds  to  continue  his  enterprise — a  further  interest  in  his 
undertaking  of  one  thousand  livres,  and  obtained  from  De 
Monts  a  quitclaim  to  all  his  rights  in  Acadia,  and  from 
Louis  XIII.  a  new  grant  of  all  the  territory  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  Florida.  The  next  vessel  to  arrive  in  the 
Bay  of  Fundy  had  on  board,  as  representative  of  Madame 
de  Guercheville's  interests,  a  lay  brother  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  Gilbert  du  Thet.  Dissensions  arose  at  once  in  the 
colony  between  the  Guercheville  and  the  Pourtrincourt 
rival  interests.  The  Jesuits  resolved  to  withdraw,  but 
were  forcibly  hindered  from  sailing  by  young  Pourtrin- 
court. Du  Thet  returned  alone  to  report  to  his  employer, 
the  marquise. 

The  result  of  his  report  was  that  Madame  de  Guerche- 
ville resolved  to  start  a  colony  of  her  own  in  a  more 
favorable  portion  of  her  vast  domains.  The  good  ship 
"  Jonas  "  was  chartered,  and  took  on  board,  with  other 
things  needed  for  the  purpose,  forty  colonists,  a  third 
Jesuit  father,  Du  Quentin,  and  the  business  manager,  Du 
Thet.      La  Saussaye  was  commander  of  the  colony.     The 


128  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

vessel  left  France  March  12,  161 3,  reached  Port  Royal 
safely,  picked  up  the  two  Jesuits,  Biard  and  Masse,  glad 
to  escape  from  the  insults  and  indignities  of  young  Pour- 
trincourt,  and  bore  away  to  the  southwest  for  the  mouth 
of  the  Penobscot.  They  ran  into  a  large  harbor  on  the 
eastern  side  of  Mount  Desert  Island,  landed,  planted  a 
cross,  celebrated  mass,  and  called  the  island  St.  Sauveur. 
The  commander,  instead  of  fortifying  his  position  and  set- 
ting his  guns  in  place,  put  his  men  to  planting  crops.  It 
was  a  mistake  dearly  paid  for.  After  a  few  days  a  sail 
hove  in  sight,  and  bore  down  upon  the  "  Jonas  "  riding  at 
anchor ;  only  a  handful  of  men  were  aboard,  among  them 
Du  Thet.  As  soon  as  the  Frenchmen  became  aware  that 
the  stranger  was  an  Englishman,  a  few  inefTectual  shots 
were  fired,  to  which  reply  was  duly  made ;  most  of  the 
men  on  the  "  Jonas  "  were  wounded ;  the  lay  brother  was 
killed  outright.  Then  the  English  landed  a  force,  and,  find- 
ing the  settlement  empty,  had  no  trouble  in  capturing  it. 

The  visitors  were  from  Virginia,  led  by  Samuel  Argall, 
who,  sailing  north  to  fish  off  the  coasts  of  Maine,  Nova 
Scotia,  and  Newfoundland,  carried  a  commission  from  Sir 
Thomas  Dale,  governor  of  Virginia,  to  expel  all  French- 
men found  within  the  bounds  of  English  territory.  Here 
he  found  them.  While  La  Saussaye  was  absent  from  his 
hut,  the  high-minded  Argall  opened  the  French  com- 
mander's trunk  and  stole  his  papers.  When  La  Saussaye 
made  his  appearance,  the  Englishman  coolly  asked  to  see 
the  commission  authorizing  him  to  set  up  an  establishment 
on  English  soil,  and  fumed  and  raged  when  La  Saussaye 
could  not  produce  it.  Fifteen  of  the  French,  including  La 
Saussaye  and  Father  Masse,  were  cast  adrift  in  an  open 
boat,  and  were  fortunately  picked  up  on  the  coast  of  Nova 
Scotia  by  two  French  trading-vessels.  The  others,  in- 
cluding Fathers  Biard  and  Du  Quentin,  were  carried  off 


DESTRUCTION  OF  TORT  ROYAL.  -129 

to  Newport  News,  in  the  "  Chesapeake,"  the  seat  of  Gov- 
ernor Dale.  To  save  his  French  captives  from  the  gallows, 
Argall  had  to  reveal  his  low  trick  and  show  the  commis- 
sion of  the  French  king.  The  two  countries  were  at  peace, 
and  Dale  did  not  dare  hang  French  subjects  bearing  regu- 
lar papers  for  their  colonization. 

Moreover,  if  England  made  claims  to  North  America  in 
virtue  of  the  discovery  of  Cabot,  France  made  claims  to 
the  same  in  virtue  of  the  discoveries  of  Verrazano  and 
others  before  him.  It  certainly  was  not  for  the  governor 
of  Virginia  to  solve  the  dispute.  James  I.,  it  is  true,  by 
patents  of  1606,  had  granted  all  North  America  from  the 
thirty-fourth  to  the  forty-fifth  degree  to  two  companies, 
that  of  London  and  that  of  Plymouth.  To  the  former  was 
assigned  Virginia,  to  the  latter  Maine  and  Acadia.  But 
it  was  not  for  the  governor  of  Virginia  to  assert  England's 
right  outside  his  own  jurisdiction.  And,  at  any  rate,  the 
kings  of  France  had  issued  patents  earlier  than  1606  cov- 
ering the  same  territory.  If  we  are  to  go  by  patents, 
France  was  in  possession.  If  we  are  to  go  by  discoveries, 
the  question  was  doubtful. 

Nevertheless,  while  sparing  the  lives  of  the  Frenchmen, 
the  governor  ordered  Argall  to  go  back  and  utterly  de- 
stroy the  Mount  Desert  and  Port  Royal  settlements.  The 
captain,  with  his  own  vessel  and  the  captured  "  Jonas,"  on 
which  were  the  Jesuits,  set  off  to  do  the  governor's  bid- 
ding. Port  Royal  was  burned  and  the  settlers  left  without 
a  roof.  On  the  way  back  a  terrible  western  gale  struck 
the  "Jonas,"  drove  her  to  the  Azores,  and  thence  she 
sailed  into  Pembroke,  Wales.  The  two  Jesuits  made  their 
way  to  France  (161 5).  The  French  court  complained  to 
England  of  the  outrage,  but  in  the  troubled  state  of  Euro- 
pean politics  the  matter  was  dropped.  Thus  were  crushed 
by  a  lawless  and  unjustifiable  violence  the  beginnings  of  the 


130.  THE  ROMAN  CAri/OLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

French  empire  on  our  coasts;  thus  was  the  current  of  our 
history  changed.  Seven  years  later,  a  Httle  south  of  Mount 
Desert,  landed  in  Plymouth  harbor  another  colony  that 
was  destined  to  shape  the  future  of  North  America. 

Port  Royal  had  been  destroyed,  but  the  colonists  re- 
mained and  kept  hold  on  Acadia.  They  are  the  germs 
of  the  Acadian  race  whose  happy  agricultural  Hfe  and 
unhappy  exportation  by  the  English  a  century  and  a  half 
later  are  the  theme  of  history  and  poetry.  Port  Royal 
was  rebuilt,  and  plans  of  more  extensive  settlement  were 
resumed.  England  and  the  English  colonists  in  America 
seem  to  have  conceded  that  Acadia  was  French  territory 
and  that  it  extended  to  the  Penobscot,  though  France 
seems  to  have  claimed  always  the  Kennebec  as  the  bound- 
ary-line ;  this  claim  was  allowed  by  the  Treaty  of  Breda 
(1667).  Intercourse  between  Acadia  and  France  was 
brisk.  More  than  five  hundred  French  vessels  sailed 
annually,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to 
the  North  American  coast  for  whale  and  cod  fishing  and 
the  fur-trade.  There  is  an  autograph  letter  in  the  "  Ar- 
chives de  la  Marine  "  from  Pourtrincourt,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded to  his  father's  estates  and  titles,  written  in  Port 
Royal  in  161 8,  and  addressed  to  the  magistrates  of  Paris, 
in  which  he  urges  the  importance  of  establishing  fortified 
posts  in  Acadia,  to  defend  it  against  the  incursions  of  the 
English. 

The  Recollects  were  in  charge  of  the  French  colonists 
of  Acadia  in  16 19.  In  1633  Cardinal  Richelieu  intrusted 
the  Acadian  missions  to  the  Capuchins.  They  had  stations 
from  Chaleurs  Bay  to  the  Kennebec,  at  the  points  most 
frequented  by  French  traders ;  they  did  not  confine  their 
attention  to  their  own  countrymen.  The  fact  that  Car- 
dinal Richelieu  gave  them  means  (1640)  to  found  and 
maintain  an  Indian  school  proves  that  they  were  active  in 


THE    LVD  I  A  AS   OF  MAINE.  \  3  i 

the  work  of  converting  the  tribes.  Though  Port  Royal  in 
Nova  Scotia  was  their  central  mission,  they  had  stations  in 
Maine  on  the  Penobscot  and  the  Kennebec.  The  station 
on  the  Penobscot  went  by  the  name  of  Pentagoet,  as  did 
the  river;  Pentagoet  was  on  or  near  the  site  of  the  present 
Castine.  In  1863  a  copperplate  was  found  there  bearing 
this  inscription:  "  1648,  8,  Jun :  F.  Leo,  Parisin,  Capvc; 
Miss posni  Jioc  fiindtm  in  Hrnein  Ni'ce  Diucb  Sanctcs  Spei'' 
("  On  the  8th  of  June,  1648,  I,  Friar  Leo,  of  Paris,  Capu- 
chin missionary,  laid  this  corner-stone  in  honor  of  Our 
Lady  of  Holy  Hope  ").  That  they  had  a  residence,  or 
hospice,  somewhere  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kennebec  is 
ascertained  from  the  account  given  in  the  "  Relations  des 
Jesuites  "  of  a  visit  made  to  them  in  that  locality  by  Father 
Druillettes,  of  whom  we  are  to  speak  presently. 

In  Maine  at  that  time  dwelt  a  branch  of  the  Algonquin 
family  of  Indians.  It  went  by  the  general  name  of  Abe- 
nakis,  and  contained  many  tribes ;  one  has  left  its  name  to 
the  Penobscot,  another  to  the  Androscoggin  ;  at  Norridge- 
wock  they  had  a  fixed  habitation  and  cultivated  the  sur- 
rounding fields  between  the  seasons  of  hunting  and  fishing. 
The  Iroquois  were  the  enemies  of  this  tribe,  as  of  the 
whole  Algonquin  race.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the 
Abenakis  felt  friendly  to  the  French  and  always  sought 
to  be  under  the  protection  of  the  powers  in  Canada.  They 
first  came  in  contact  with  the  French  when,  in  161 2, 
Father  Biard  visited  them  on  the  Kennebec  during  an 
excursion  down  the  coast  from  Port  Royal.  Later,  when 
the  French  had  settled  permanently  in  Quebec  and  along 
the  St.  Lawrence,  Abenakis  from  Norridgewock  paid  fre- 
quent visits  to  the  mission  of  Sillery.  Some  of  the  visitors 
were  converted  and  baptized,  returned  to  their  homes  to 
become  missionaries  themselves,  and  succeeded  so  well  in 
interesting  their  tribesmen  that  a  formal  deputation  was 


132  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

sent  in  1646  to  the  governor  of  Quebec  and  the  superior 
of  the  Jesuits,  to  ask  that  one  of  the  fathers  be  allowed  to 
reside  among  them. 

"  A  people  renowned  for  their  brav^ery,"  says  Charle- 
voix, "  so  situated  between  the  English  and  ourselves  that 
they  might  be  a  great  help  to  us  in  the  future  in  case  of  a 
rupture  with  New  England,  was  an  acquisition,  that  should 
not  be  neglected."  The  deputation  was  well  received,  and 
in  August,  1646,  Father  Druillettes,  one  of  the  Jesuits  of 
Quebec,  returned  with  them  to  Norridgewock.  They  built 
for  him  a  rude  chapel,  and  he  remained  wdth  them  some 
ten  months  or  a  year,  learning  their  language,  nursing  and 
baptizing  their  sick,  giving  such  instructions  as  his  imper- 
fect knowledge  of  their  dialect  allowed,  and  winning  their 
respect  and  love  despite  the  opposition  of  the  medicine- 
men, the  irreconcilable  antagonists  of  the  Catholic  mission- 
ary among  the  tribes  of  the  North  as  well  as  of  the  South. 
Three  things  he  demanded  of  them  as  previous  conditions 
to  admittance  into  the  church :  total  abstinence  from  the 
fire-water  of  their  European  neighbors;  cessation  of  war 
between  tribes ;  renunciation  of  their  manitous  and  super- 
stitious rites.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to  give  baptism,  unless 
in  danger  of  death ;  for  a  long  novitiate  and  catechising 
were  proved  by  experience  to  be  best,  if  not  essential 
The  greater  number  of  the  tribe  were  catechumens  and 
attended  faithfully  the  daily  religious  exercises  of  the 
mission. 

During  his  stay  he  went  down  the  river  Kennebec  twice, 
the  first  time  as  far  as  Augusta,  and  the  second  as  far  as 
the  ocean.  The  purpose  of  the  first  voyage  was  to  gain 
the  friendship  of  an  English  trader,  Winslovv,  agent  for  a 
merchant  of  Boston,  Edward  Gibbons,  a  personage  of  note, 
a  magistrate  of  the  commonwealth,  and  a  major-general. 
Winslow,  who  found  his  own  advantage,  no  doubt,  in  the 


EUROPEAN  CLAIMANTS    TO  MAINE.  133 

civilizing  work  of  _  Druillettes  among  the  Indians  witli 
whom  the  trading  was  carried  on,  had  just  returned  from 
Plymouth  at  the  time  of  the  missionary's  visit.  This  col- 
ony, as  well  as  Canada  and  France,  claimed  jurisdiction 
over  the  part  of  Maine  lying  below  the  Penobscot.  Wins- 
low  had  spoken  well  of  the  missionary,  and  brought  back 
from  the  Plymouth  authorities  a  permission  for  Druillettes 
to  build  a  residence,  import  a  few  Frenchmen  as  compan- 
ions, and  pursue  his  work  without  fear  of  interruption.  It 
would  seem  that  the  Jesuit,  conscious  he  had  come  into 
debatable  territory,  was  well  content  to  have  this  security 
from  the  counter-claimant.  The  purpose  of  the  second 
voyage  was  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  coast,  where  he 
found  seven  or  eight  English  trading-posts,  and  to  visit 
the  Capuchins  on  the  Penobscot,  who  received  him  with 
the  kindness  due  to  a  brother  religious.  Early  in  the 
summer  of  1647  he  returned  to  Quebec  to  report  to  his 
superiors  and  get  recruits  for  the  mission. 

A  study  of  the  geography  of  Maine  will  give  the  reason 
why  the  French  authorities  were  anxious  to  attach  the 
Abenakis  and  cultivate  missions  among  them.  The  St. 
John  and  the  Penobscot  run  up  very  close  to  the  St. 
Lawrence ;  the  head-waters  of  the  Kennebec  are  inter- 
woven with  those  of  La  Chaudiere,  which  flows  into  the 
St.  Lawrence.  It  was  of  the  last  importance  for  the 
French  to  seize  and  hold  these  water-routes.  The  Nor- 
ridgewock  band  of  the  Abenakis,  who  lived  on  the  Ken- 
nebec, and  the  kindred  bands  on  the  Penobscot,  the  St. 
Croix,  and  the  St.  John,  if  securely  allied  to  the  French, 
would  be  a  living  barrier  against  English  intrusion  and 
Iroquois  irruption  in  this  direction.  There  was  no  better 
means  to  keep  them  true  to  P'rance  than  to  make  them 
children  of  the  church  and  to  station  missionaries  among 
them. 


134  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

It  was  three  years  before  Druillettes  returned.  Prob- 
ably the  Jesuits  of  Canada  were  short  of  subjects,  and  older 
missions  claimed  their  attention.  Another  probable  reason 
may  be  deduced  from  an  entry  in  the  Journal  of  the 
superior  of  the  Jesuits.  It  is  there  stated  that  the  Capu- 
chins of  the  Penobscot  had  mildly  protested  against  the 
intrusion  of  the  Jesuits  into  their  territory.  But  shortly 
after,  owing  to  political  dissensions  and  troubles  among 
the  colonists  of  the  Penobscot  that  threatened  the  closing 
up  of  their  missions,  the  Capuchins  reconsidered  the  step 
and  begged  the  Jesuits  to  resume  charge  of  the  Indians  of 
the  Kennebec.  In  the  autumn  of  1650  Druillettes  again 
descended  the  riv'er  and  arrived  at  Norridgewock,  to  the 
joy  of  the  Indians.  This  time  he  came  not  only  as  a  mis- 
sionary, but  also  as  a  political  envoy  charged  with  the 
negotiation  of  a  treaty.  The  colony  of  Massachusetts  had 
asked  for  reciprocity  of  trade  with  Canada.  The  authori- 
ties at  Quebec  were  willing  on  one  condition — an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  against  the  Iroquois.  Since  the 
English  commonwealth  claimed  jurisdiction  over  the  Ken- 
nebec Indians,  it  was  its  plain  duty  to  protect  them  against 
their  sleepless  foes.  Druillettes  was  an  envoy  of  Quebec 
and  of  the  Abenaki  nation  to  negotiate  the  treaty.  While 
his  friend  Winslow  forwarded  to  Boston  notice  of  the  mis- 
sionary's embassy,  the  work  of  instructing  and  converting- 
went  on  at  Norridgewock. 

In  November  he  started  for  the  Puritan  stronghold, 
whose  chief  object  in  colonizing  was  "  to  raise  a  bulwark 
against  the  kingdom  of  Antichrist,  which  the  Jesuits  labor 
to  rear  up  in  all  places  of  the  world  " — the  Puritan  strong- 
hold that  just  three  years  before  had  enacted  "  that  Jesuits 
entering  the  colony  should  be  expelled,  and  if  they  re- 
turned, hanged.''  But  the  Puritans  chose  to  see  in  him 
not  the  Jesuit,  but   the   ambassador.      He  was  welcomed 


DRUILLETTES  IN  BOSTON.  135 

and  feted  everywhere.  Edward  Gibbons  gave  him  hospi- 
tahty  and  a  room  wherein  to  say  mass ;  Governor  Dudley 
had  him  as  guest  of  honor  at  a  dinner  graced  by  the 
magistrates;  Governor  Bradford,  of  Plymouth,  also  enter- 
tained him  at  dinner,  and,  as  it  was  Friday,  provided  fish 
for  him;  Eliot  lodged  him  for  a  night  at  Roxbury  and 
showed  him  his  Indian  pupils ;  Endicott,  at  Salem,  sympa- 
thized with  the  purpose  of  his  embassy,  and  advanced  him 
money  for  his  return  voyage;  and  Druillettes  himself,  we 
fancy,  kept  his  eyes  open  and  compared  the  young,  bus- 
tling, freedom-loving  colonies  with  the  feudal  colony  on  the 
St.  Lawrence.  He  returned  to  Quebec  in  June  without 
any  definite  answer,  but  with  the  hope  that  the  object  of 
his  mission  would  meet  with  success  in  the  near  future. 

The  governor  of  Quebec  and  his  council  heard  his 
report  and  sent  him  back  to  meet  the  Commissioners  of 
the  Four  Colonies  assembled  in  New  Haven  (165  i).  The 
Catholic  priest  pleaded  before  the  assembly — a  strange 
meeting  indeed — for  a  brotherhood  of  the  European  nations 
settled  on  American  soil,  and  for  combined  action  against 
the  heathen  power  of  the  Iroquois.  It  was  in  vain.  The 
bait  of  free  trade  failed  to  bring  the  Puritans  to  sacrifice 
their  strongest  bulwark  against  French  power.  Druillettes 
went  back  to  Canada  to  report  his  failure,  nor  did  he  ever 
again  revisit  his  Indian  flock  on  the  Kennebec. 

For  thirty-six  years — that  is  to  say,  from  1652,  date  of 
Druillettes'  last  visit  to  the  Kennebec,  until  1688 — the 
mission  work  of  Maine  was  interrupted,  or  ratlier  no  mis- 
sionary resided  among  the  Abenakis.  However,  frequent 
visits  of  the  Indians  to  missions  on  the  St.  Lawrence  kept 
them  in  constant  contact  with  the  French  and  the  Jesuits. 
A  certain  number  of  the  Abenakis,  in  order  to  be  under 
French  protection  and  near  their  Christian  teachers,  emi- 
grated to  Sillery  and  fixed  their  residence  in  that  mission. 


136  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  X. 

Subsequently  they  were  transferred  to  the  mission  of  St. 
Francis,  on  the  Chaudiere  River.  These  had  great  influ- 
ence over  their  fellow-tribesmen  in  Maine,  and  were  ever 
ready  to  give  them  hospitality  on  their  visits  to  the  French 
settlements  and  authorities,  and  to  take  part  with  them  in 
their  wars.  The  distance  from  St.  Francis  to  the  Abenaki 
villages  on  the  Kennebec  was  but  a  two-weeks'  journey. 
This  condition  of  things  explains  how  Christianity  was 
maintained  among  them  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  a  mis- 
sionary. 

In  1688  the  Maine  missions  were  reopened  at  three 
points — at  Norridgewock  on  the  Kennebec,  at  Pentagoet 
on  the  Penobscot,  on  the  St.  John  River  at  its  mouth. 
The  Jesuits  took  charge  of  the  Kennebec  tribe,  the  Semi- 
nary of  Quebec  of  the  Penobscot,  the  Recollects  of  the 
Micmacs  on  the  St.  John.  As  the  work  of  the  latter  lay 
mostly  to  the  north  of  the  river,  outside  the  limits  of  the 
United  States,  we  dismiss  it.  The  Seminary  of  Quebec 
after  a  few  years  surrendered  its  post  on  the  Penobscot. 
By  the  year  1 700  all  the  Indians  in  Maine  were  in  charge 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  most  of  them  at  that  time 
were  Christians. 

When  the  war  known  in  Europe  as  the  War  of  the 
Spanish  Succession,  and  in  America  as  Queen  Anne's 
War,  broke  out,  the  Maine  Indians  very  naturally  sided 
with  the  French,  to  whom  they  were  bound  by  ties  of 
religion  and  trade.  It  was  in  vain  that  Dudley,  governor 
of  Massachusetts,  attempted  in  May,  1702,  at  the  meeting 
of  Casco,  to  bring  the  Abenaki  chiefs  to  an  attitude  of 
neutrality;  in  a  few  weeks,  war,  burning,  desolation,  and 
death  raged  all  along  the  frontier.  Few  incidents  in  our 
border  history  and  Indian  wars  are  more  pathetic  than  the 
attacks  on  Deerfield  and  Haverhill.  Nothing  in  all  our  his- 
tory more  than  the  cruelties  of  this  war  filled  the  Ameri- 


ACADIA    CEDED    TO   ENGLAND.  1 37 

cans  with  greater  hatred  for  the  French  missionaries,  whom 
they  held  responsible,  though  without  ground,  for  the 
fierceness  with  which  Canadians  and  Indians  waged  war 
on  the  defenseless  colonists,  respecting  neither  age  nor 
sex.  To  the  same  source  may  be  attributed  that  contempt 
for  the  Indian,  that  dogged  determination  to  exterminate 
the  race,  that  have  characterized  the  Puritan  and  placed 
him  in  such  unenviable  contrast  to  the  New  Yorker, 
Dutch  and  English,  the  Pennsylvanian,  the  Marylander, 
and  the  Southern  colonists. 

This  terrible  war  was  ended  (17 13)  by  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht,  which  was  no  less  important  for  America  than  it 
was  momentous  for  Europe.  It  gave  to  England  large 
concessions  of  territory  hitherto  considered  as  French,  and 
in  so  far  was  the  entering  wedge  that  split  and  shattered 
the  American  empire  of  France.  England  obtained  the 
entire  possession  of  Hudson's  Bay,  of  Newfoundland, 
and  of  Nova  Scotia  or  Acadia  "  according  to  its  ancient 
boundaries";  and  France  acknowledged  that  the  Five 
Nations  were  subject  to  the  protectorate  of  Great  Britain. 
This  latter  concession  was  big  with  important  conclusions, 
which  were  drawn  and  made  practical  at  a  later  date. 
The  cession  of  Acadia  "  according  to  its  ancient  bound- 
aries "  raised  immediately  the  question,  Which  are  the 
ancient  boundaries?  The  St.  Croix,  said  the  F'rench,  and 
therefore  the  territory  between  the  Kennebec  and  the  St. 
Croix  was  not  ceded  ;  in  other  words,  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht 
did  not  give  Maine  to  the  British  crown.  The  Kennebec, 
said  the  English,  and  therefore  not  only  the  territory  now 
called  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick,  but  also  what  is 
now  known  as  Maine,  was  ceded  by  the  Peace  of  Utrecht 
to  England ;  and  therefore  not  only  the  Five  Nations,  but 
the  Abenaki  tribes  also,  were  English  subjects. 

To  solve  this  and   other  disputed  questions,   commis- 


138  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  \. 

sioners  were  appointed  by  both  countries  who  held  many 
meetings ;  but  no  solution  was  found  until  the  war  of  1 744. 
While  France  and  England  were  fighting  over  maps  and 
charts  and  relations  of  early  voyagers,  to  decide  which  was 
in  possession  of  Maine,  the  Abenakis  themselves  came  for- 
ward with  the  assertion  that  they  alone  were  the  rightful 
owners  of  their  land,  and  backed  their  claim  by  a  war  of 
their  own  making  against  the  English  encroachers  on  their 
domain.  That  they  were  sustained  in  this  struggle  by  the 
government  of  Canada  cannot  be  denied  when  one  studies 
the  original  documents  of  Paris,  New  York,  and  Massa- 
chusetts. That  the  Jesuits  instigated  the  war;  that  they 
sacrificed  to  their  national  sympathies  and  the  political 
interests  of  France  the  lessons  of  Christianity,  the  spiritual 
interests  of  their  flock ;  and  that  they  used  their  power  over 
their  neophytes  only  to  drive  back  the  English  colonists 
and  hold  the  Abenaki  country  as  a  buff'er  between  the 
Protestant  colonies  and  Catholic  Canada,  cannot  be  proved 
by  any  original  authorities  worthy  the  serious  considera- 
tion of  a  grave  and  impartial  critic. 

The  missionary  on  the  Kennebec  at  this  time  was  one 
who  in  life  attracted  the  hatred  of  the  English  colonists, 
for  whom  France  and  Catholicity  were  one  and  equally 
inimical  to  their  interests ;  who  in  death  is  still  the  target 
of  historical  hates  hardly  less  fierce.  Sebastien  Rale,  born 
in  Franche-Comte,  France,  in  1657,  came  to  the  American 
missions  in  1689,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two.  After  spend- 
ing some  time  among  the  Abenaki  immigrants  in  Canada 
and  on  the  Illinois  beyond  Lake  Michigan,  he  was  sent  to 
the  Abenakis  of  the  Kennebec,  where  he  was  pursuing  mis- 
sionary work  when  Queen  Anne's  War  broke  out.  Near 
the  present  village  of  Norridgewock,  at  a  point  known  then 
as  Narantsouac  and  now  as  Indian  Old  Point,  stood  his 
church.      Here   he   lived   and   labored  for  a  quarter  of  a 


RALE  IN  MAINE.  1 39 

century.  We  have  from  himself,  in  letters  to  his  brother 
and  his  nephew,  a  detailed  description  of  his  life,  than 
which  nothing  more  apostolic  can  be  found  in  the  history 
of  the  church.  He  was  familiar  with  several  Indian  lan- 
guages of  the  Algonquin  family,  and  knew  Abenaki  so 
thoroughly  that  he  wrote  a  very  complete  dictionary  of  it, 
the  manuscript  of  which  is  still  preserved  in  Harvard  and 
was  published  in  1833. 

During  the.  war  the  villages  on  the  Penobscot  were 
raided  by  Major  Church,  and  those  on  the  Kennebec  by 
Major  Hilton  (1704-05).  Not  only  were  the  habitations 
destroyed,  but  the  church  of  Father  Rale  was  burned  and 
its  sacred  contents  stolen  and  profaned.  On  the  conclusion 
of  peace  the  governor  of  Massachusetts  offered  to  rebuild 
the  church  if  the  Indians  would  dismiss  the  French  mis- 
sionary and  receive  a  Puritan  minister.  Evidently  the 
governor  was  not  familiar  with  the  temper  of  the  Christian 
Indian.  His  offer  was  scorned.  The  government  of  Can- 
ada rebuilt  the  church,  and  it  was  so  goodly  in  size  and 
style  that,  according  to  Rale  himself,  it  might  have  passed 
muster  in  Europe.  At  the  time  there  was  another  church 
in  Maine,  on  the  Penobscot,  somewhat  above  the  present 
Castine,  in  charge  of  Father  Lauverjat. 

This  was  the  condition  of  the  missions  in  Maine  when, 
soon  after  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  the  Abenakis  were  in- 
formed that  France  had  abandoned  them  and  had  ceded 
their  country  to  England.  As  if  to  prove  the  truth  of  the 
news,  not  only  were  the  English  villages  destroyed  during 
the  war  restored,  but  the  Kennebec  was  crossed,  new 
English  settlements  and  trading-posts  were  planted  on  its 
eastern  bank,  and  forts  were  raised.  But  the  Abenaki 
chiefs  did  not  recognize  the  right  of  France  to  give  away 
what  God  had  made  theirs — their  country';  and  therefore 
denied   the   Englishman's    right    to    occupy  it.     Canada, 


140  THE  ROMAN  CATHOUXJS.  [Chap.  X. 

it  is  true,  could  not  openly  side  with  them  in  a  war  for 
their  right  of  possession,  since  there  was  peace  between 
France  and  England  ;  but  Canada  could  secretly  encourage 
and  help  them  to  maintain  an  independence  which  was  of 
sovereign  importance  to  the  integrity  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 
The  colony  of  Massachusetts  was  well  aware  that,  if  it 
would  have  its  own  way  with  the  Abenakis,  the  first  step 
was  to  get  rid  of  the  French  missionaries,  especially  of 
Father  Rale.      As  a  direct  demand   had  been  more  than 
once  made  on  the  Indians  for  his  dismissal  and  had  been 
Refused,  only  two  ways  remained  to  encompass  the  end — 
competition  or  violence.      Competition  was  first  tried.     A 
Protestant  minister,  the  Rev.  Joseph  Baxter,  was  sent  to 
the  tribe  to  counteract,  and  in  due  course  of  time  to  de- 
stroy, the  influence  of  the  Catholic  priest.      Parkman  very 
frankly  says  :  "  With  no  experience  of  Indian  life  or  knowl- 
edge of  any  Indian  language,  he  entered  the  lists  against 
an  adversary  who  spent  half  his  days  among  savages,  had 
gained  the  love  and  admiration  of  the  Norridgewock,  and 
spoke  their  language  fluently.     Baxter,  with  the  confidence 
of  a  novice,  got  an  interpreter  and  began  to  preach,  exhort, 
and  launch  sarcasms  against  the  doctrines  and  practices  of 
the  Roman  Church.     Rale  came  to  the  rescue  of  his  flock. 
'  My  Christians,'  said  he,  '  believe  the  truths  of  the  Catho- 
lic faith,  but  are  not  skillful  disputants.'  "     Thereupon,  on 
behalf  of  his  neophytes,  he  entered  the  field  of  controversy, 
and  sent  Baxter  a  long  defense  of  Catholic  doctrines.     The 
paper  was  in  Latin.      To  prepare  an  answer  and  put  the 
answer  in   Latin,   Baxter  found    it   convenient   to   go   to 
Boston.     The  answer  was  short,  and,  says  Rale  in  a  letter 
to  his  brother,  "  of  a  style  so  obscure  and  a  Latinity  so 
outlandish  that  I  had  to  read  it  more  than  once  to  get  at 
its  meaning.     I  finally  made  out  that  he  complained  of  my 
baseless  attack  on  him,  and  that  my  arguments  were  ridicu- 


rilE  MISSIONS  ATTACKED.  141 

lous  and  puerile.  I  rejoined  in  a  second  letter  showing  up 
his  mistakes.  After  two  years  I  got  answer  that  evidently 
I  was  of  a  scornful  and  critical  temper  and  was  inclined  to 
anger."      So  ended  and  failed  the  attempt  at  competition. 

The  attempt  at  violence  came  in  a  short  time.  Several 
Indian  chiefs,  at  the  instigation  of  the  colonial  authorities, 
were  sent  to  Boston  as  deputies  to  arrange  amicably  the 
difficulties  between  the  tribe  and  the  commonwealth.  They 
were  detained  in  Boston  as  prisoners,  or  rather  as  hostages, 
not  to  be  given  up  until  certain  outrages  perpetrated  on 
the  colonists,  and  valued  at  two  hundred  beaver-skins, 
were  made  good.  The  Indians — not  that  they  owned  to 
the  outrages  and  the  obligation  to  compensate  for  them, 
but  that  they  wished  for  the  freedom  and  return  of  their 
chiefs — paid  the  required  indemnity.  Notwithstanding, 
the  hostages  were  detained.  To  this  violation  of  good  faith 
another  injury  was  added.  A  war-chief,  Baron  de  St.  Cas- 
tin — French  on  his  father's  side,  and  as  such  holding  from 
the  court  of  Paris  a  commission  as  governor  of  Pentagoet ; 
Indian  on  his  mother's  side,  and  as  such  a  true  Abenaki 
and  a  chief  among  them — was  seized  by  stealth  and  carried 
off  to  Boston,  where  he  was  treated  as  a  traitor  to  the 
English  crown,  though  he  was  at  last  set  at  liberty,  for  the 
reason  that  the  Indians  were  aroused  and  had  begun  to 
burn  and  kill  along  the  border. 

A  price  was  set  on  Rale's  head  to  tempt  the  Indians,  but 
without  avail.  Finally,  in  midwinter.  Colonel  Westbrook, 
at  the  head  of  three  hundred  men,  pounced  suddenly  down 
on  Norridgewock  at  a  time  when  the  warriors  were  away 
and  Rale  was  in  the  village  with  only  the  old,  the  women, 
and  the  children.  The  father,  warned  of  the  enemy's  ap- 
proach by  some  Indians  who  had  seen  them  coming,  had 
time  to  consume  the  consecrated  hosts,  which  he  dreaded 
to  leave  to  profanation,  and  escaped  to  the  woods,  wTiere 


142  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

he  was  not  discovered,  though  his  pursuers  came  within  a 
few  feet  of  him.  His  papers  fell  into  the  hands  of  West- 
brook,  and  are  still  preserved  in  the  archives  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Parkman  makes  the  assertion  that  they  prove . 
beyond  all  doubt  that  he  had  acted  as  an  agent  of  the 
Canadian  authorities  in  exciting  his  flock  against  the  Eng- 
lish. And  yet  he  specifies  but  one  letter  from  Vaudreuil 
to  Rale  expressing  great  satisfaction  at  the  missionary's 
success  in  uniting  the  Indians  against  the  English.  If  this 
be  the  only  premise  he  has  for  his  conclusion,  there  is  more 
in  the  conclusion  than  in  the  premise.  Bancroft  contents 
himself  with  saying,  "  The  correspondence  with  Vaudreuil 
proved  a  latent  hope  of  establishing  the  power  of  France 
on  the  Atlantic." 

Exasperated  by  all  these  insults,  the  Abenakis  resolved 
to  wage  a  war  of  extermination.  They  sent  deputies  to 
carry  the  hatchet  and  chant  the  war-song  among  their 
friends  and  allies  along  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  burning  of 
settlements  and  murdering  of  settlers  went  on  with  great- 
est cruelty.  Rale  clearly  foresaw  that  in  the  end  the  red 
men  must  be  conquered.  By  his  advice  many  families 
withdrew  to  the  Christian  missions  on  the  Canadian 
border,  though  this  policy  did  not  at  all  suit  that  of  Vau- 
dreuil and  the  Canadian  authorities,  who  were  unwilling 
to  abandon  to  the  English  the  rivers  of  Maine,  whose 
head-waters  were  so  close  to  the  St.  Lawrence  To  the 
solicitations  of  his  neophytes  to  seek  safety  in  flight,  ac- 
company the  refugees  to  the  Canadian  missions,  and  leave 
the  warriors  to  deal  with  the  English,  Rale  opposed  a  con- 
stant refusal ;  he  would  remain  at  his  post  until  the  very 
last. 

In  July,  1 722,  the  government  of  Massachusetts  declared 
formal  war  against  the  Abenakis  and  raised  troops.  In 
March,   1723,  Westbrook  fell  on  the  Indian  settlement  of 


THE  DEATH  OF  RALE.  143 

the  Penobscot,  probably  Old  Town,  above  Bangor,  and  set 
fire  to  the  village.  The  fort,  every  house,  and  the  church 
where  ministered  Father  Lauverjat  were  consumed.  In 
August,  1724,  Norridgewock  was  surprised  by  two  hun- 
dred and  eight  men  under  Colonel  Moulton.  The  Indians 
did  not  become  aware  of  the  presence  of  the  English  until 
the  first  volley  had  been  fired  within  the  streets  of  the 
village.  Fifty  warriors — all  that  were  at  home — rushed 
out  in  disorder,  not  so  much  to  defend  themselves  as  to 
give  time  to  the  non-combatants  to  flee  to  the  woods.  In 
the  same  spirit  of  heroic  self-sacrifice.  Rale,  well  aware 
that  he  was  the  one  prey  the  English  were  in  search  of, 
came  forward  to  draw  their  attention  from  his  flock  to 
himself.  At  sight  of  him  a  great  yell  went  up  from  the 
English  ranks;  he  fell,  riddled  with  bullets,  at  the  foot  of 
the  great  cross  on  the  village  square.  When  the  invaders 
retired  and  the  Indians  came  back  from  their  hiding-places 
to  care  for  the  wounded  and  bury  the  dead,  Rale's  body 
was  found  "  mangled  by  many  blows,  scalped,  his  skull 
broken  in  several  places,  his  mouth  and  eyes  filled  with 
dirt."  So  Bancroft  describes  the  work  of  the  English,  or 
of  the  Indians  that  accompanied  them. 

Thus  died  one  of  the  noblest  members  of  the  heroic  band 
of  North  American  Jesuits,  worthy  compeer  of  Jogues, 
Bressani,  Brebeuf,  and  many  another  martyr.  The  story 
of  Rale's  death  comes  to  us  from  the  account  given  by  the 
superior  of  the  Jesuits  at  Quebec,  Father  La  Chasse,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Jesuits  of  France,  dated  October  29,  i  724,  a  few 
months  after  the  event.  No  doubt  he  had  the  story  from 
eye-witnesses,  the  Abenakis  engaged  in  the  fight,  "  who 
are,"  says  Parkman,  "  notorious  liars  where  their  interest 
and  self-love  are  concerned."  But  what  interest  and  self- 
love  of  theirs  are  particularly  concerned  in  Rale's  death? 
Why  call  them  "  notorious  liars"  when  on  the  very  same 


144  ^^^  JiOMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

page  we  read,  "  Rale  exercised  a  humanizing  influence 
over  his  flock ;  the  war  was  marked  by  fewer  barbarities, 
fewer  tortures,  mutilations  of  the  dead,  butcheries  of 
women  and  infants,  than  either  of  the  preceding  wars"? 
If  he  could  turn  these  savages  into  civilized  belligerents  he 
could  also  have  taught  them  love  of  truth.  To  call,  in  a 
gloriously  sweeping  style,  the  eye-witnesses  of  Rale's 
death  "  notorious  liars  "  is  to  poison  the  wells  of  evidence  ; 
for  the  nonce  the  historian  has  forgotten  himself  in  the 
special  pleader. 

The  war  went  on  for  some  months.  But  at  last  the 
Indians,  who,  though  instigated,  were  not  supported  by  the 
French,  became  painfully  aware  that  they  were  excelled 
by  the  English  even  in  their  own  method  of  warfare,  and 
concluded  a  peace  (August,  i  726)  that  was  long  and  faith- 
fully maintained.  They  became  the  subjects  of  England ; 
but  they  did  not  for  that  reason  renounce  their  religion, 
thus  proving  that  it  was  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the 
Canadian  authorities  to  think  that  their  fidelity  to  Rome 
was  bound  up  with  their  fidelity  to  Versailles;  that  the 
moment  they  should  escape  the  French  protectorate  they 
would  fall  away  from  Catholicity.  The  history  of  the 
Abenakis  thenceforth  proves  the  contrary. 

After  the  peace  the  village  of  Norridgewock  was  dis- 
persed. One  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  tribe  emigrated  to 
Canada,  and  the  remainder  found  refuge  among  the  other 
tribes  of  Maine.  The  Penobscot  settlement  rose  from  its 
ashes ;  its  chapel  was  rebuilt,  and  remained  under  the  care 
of  Father  Lauverjat  until  he  was  driven  away  by  the  im- 
moralities and  persecution  of  the  half-breed  St.  Castines. 
In  1730  Norridgewock  also  rose  from  its  ashes.  Indians 
from  other  parts  of  Maine  and  from  the  missions  of  St. 
Francis  and  Becancour  on  the  St.  Lawrence  returned  to 
the  Kennebec,  and  a  missionary,  Father  James  de  Syresne, 


PKRSEl'EKANCE    Uf    THE   ABENAKIS.  I45 

or  Sirenne,  came  from  Quebec  to  reside  among  them. 
From  Norridgewock  he  extended  his  visits  and  care  to  all 
the  tribes  of  Maine. 

After  Father  De  Sirenne,  Father  Germain,  residing  at 
St.  Ann,  on  the  St.  John  River,  near  the  present  Frederick- 
ton,  visited  the  Catholics  throughout  Maine.  For  many 
years  after  I  760  the  Indians  remained  without  a  mission 
ary.  The  stern  laws  of  the  Puritan  colonies  against  the 
church  were  in  force.  Perhaps,  for  all  we  know,  priests 
from  Canada  made  stealthy  visits  to  the  scattered  Catholic 
Indians,  and  no  doubt  the  Indians  made  frequent  visits 
to  the  Canadian  missions.  The  parents  baptized  and  in- 
structed their  children.  Every  Sunday,  morning  and  even- 
ing, they  assembled  in  the  chapels  of  their  various  vil- 
lages, and  before  the  priestless  altars  chanted  the  mass 
and  vespers,  the  Gregorian  melodies  being  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation.  Thus  without  priest  those 
faithful  red  men  kept  the  faith  under  circumstances  that 
would  have  annihilated  religion  among  the  whites.  Out- 
side of  Japan  I  know  nothing  more  admirable  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity  than  the  perseverance  of  the  Abenakis 
in  the  faith  of  the  early  missionaries. 

When  the  War  of  Independence  came  on,  the  Indians 
of  Maine  joined  the  army  of  Washington.  The  Penobscot 
chief,  Orono,  bore  a  commission  which  he  ennobled  by  his 
bravery.  Nor  in  his  wanderings  through  the  colonies  did 
he  or  his  followers  forget  their  religion.  To  all  invitations 
to  join  in  Protestant  worship  they  made  answer,  "  We 
know  our  religion  and  love  it ;  we  know  nothing  of  you 
and  yours."  When  in  1775  they  met  at  Watertown  the 
council  of  Massachusetts  to  agree  as  to  their  action  in  the 
war,  the  chief,  Ambrose  Var,  after  the  political  object  of 
the  meeting  had  been  disposed  of,  addressed  the  commis- 
sioners in  these  words  :  "  We  want  a  black  gown,  or  French 


146  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x. 

priest.  Jesus  we  pray  to,  and  we  will  not  hear  any  prayer 
that  comes  from  Old  England."  The  council  expressed 
willingness  to  get  them  a  priest :  but  not  knowing  where 
to  find  one,  could  only  offer  them  a  minister,  an  offer  most 
sternly  declined.  What  a  strange  scene!  Here  was  a 
colony  that  had  made  it  a  felony  foi  a  priest  to  visit  the 
Abenakis,  that  had  sought  and  taken  the  life  of  Rale  at  the 
foot  of  the  village  cross,  regretting  that  it  could  not  give 
their  allies  the  priest  they  demanded. 

Peace  came,  and  independence,  and  the  organization  of 
the  church.  Bishop  Carroll  sent  these  heroic  Indians  a 
missionary.  Cheverus,  first  Bishop  of  Boston,  and  his 
successors,  Fenwick  and  Fitzpatrick,  visited  them  and  be- 
stowed their  utmost  care  on  this  remnant  of  Jesuit  zeal 
and  labors.  But  this  belongs  to  later  history.  To-day 
one  thousand  descendants  of  the  neophytes  of  Druillettes 
and  Rale  hold  the  faith  and  sing  the  chants  of  their  Cath- 
olic forefathers  at  Indian  Old  Town,  Pleasant  Point,  and 
Louis  Island,  in  the  diocese  of  Portland,  Me. 


>      CHAPTER   XI. 

THE   MISSIONS   IN   NEW    YORK. 

These  missions  were  an  offshoot,  or  rather  a  result,  of 
the  labors  of  missionaries  in  territory  outside  the  present 
United  States,  viz.,  among  the  Hurons  situated  in  the  pen- 
insula bounded  by  Lakes  Ontario,  Erie,  and  Huron.  That 
territory  is  the  present  province  of  Ontario.  It  is  not  my 
business  to  recount  the  birth,  the  success,  the  ruin  of  this 
Huron  mission,  the  most  glorious  in  the  annals  of  the 
Jesuits  in  North  America,  except  in  so  far  as  it  may  be 
necessary  to  make  plain  the  history  of  the  missions  in 
New  York. 

As  early  as  1623-25  the  Recollects  Viel,  Le  Caron,  and 
Sagard  went  to  the  Huron  country  and  reached  the  tribe 
of  the  Neutrals,  situated  on  the  Niagara  River.  There  is 
no  evidence  at  hand  that  they  did  any  more  than  visit  this 
tribe,  or  that  they  made  any  permanent  sojourn  among 
them.  After  the  Recollects  of  Canada  had  called  to  their 
aid  the  Jesuits,  the  Huron  missions  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  latter,  and  Brebeuf  was  in  the  territory  in  1626.  The 
capture  of  Quebec  by  Kirk  (1628)  suspended  the  work  of 
the  Jesuits,  whom  he  ordered  back  to  France.  But  when 
Canada  was  restored  in  1632  the  Jesuits  returned  to  the 
Huron  country,  and  continued  the  mission  down  to  the 
time  of  its  destruction  by  the  Iroquois  in  1649. 

Now  the  Iroquois  missions  are  bound  up  with  the  Hu- 
ron missions  in  two  ways :    first,  the  martyrs  of  the  Iro- 

147 


148  THE   ROMAN  CATHOUCS.  [Chai'.  xi. 

quois  missions  were  men  who  had  labored  in  the  Huron 
missions;  secondly,  after  the  destruction  of  the  Huron  mis- 
sions a  large  number  of  Huron  Christians  were  incorporated 
into  the  Five  Nations,  or  the  Iroquois  Confederacy.  The 
influence  of  these  Christians  on  their  conquerors  had  much 
to  do  in  many  ways  with  the  invitation  extended  in  after 
years  to  the  Jesuits  by  the  Iroquois  to  come  to  their 
country. 

The  fatal  expedition  of  Champlain  in  1609  against  the 
Iroquois  had  left  in  the  hearts  of  those  tribes  a  hatred  that 
years  failed  to  extinguish.  Moreover,  the  Hurons,  whom 
the  Iroquois  had  been  fighting  long  before  the  French 
came,  and  whom  they  hounded  to  final  extermination, 
were  the  allies  and  proteges  of  Canada.  From  this  con- 
nection many  results  followed.  The  only  way  to  the  West 
which  lay  open  to  the  French  was  by  way  of  the  Ottawa 
River;  the  navigation  of  the  upper  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
lower  lakes  Ontario  and  Erie  was  closed  to  them,  because 
this  avenue  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Iroquois.  Stretching 
from  the  Mohawk  River  to  the  Niagara  they  had  two  lines 
by  which  to  swoop  down  upon  the  French  settlements  and 
intercept  their  trade  with  the  Western  tribes  over  the 
Ottawa  route.  Those  lines  were,  first,  Lakes  George, 
Champlain,  and  the  Richelieu  River;  second,  Ontario  and 
the  upper  St.  Lawrence. 

Any  war  waged  by  the  Iroquois  against  either  the 
Huron  or  the  far  Western  tribes  trading  with  the  French 
was  a  war  against  Canada;  for  war  against  those  tribes 
stopped  trade,  and  without  trade  the  French  colony  was 
doomed  to  death.  After  the  destruction  of  the  Huron 
missions  and  nation  in  1649,  a  portion  of  the  unfortunate 
tribe  wandered  as  far  as  Lakes  Superior  and  Michigan,  and 
there  sought  to  remake  their  fortunes  in  alliance  with  the 
tribes  of  the  far  West;   a  portion  was  adopted  into  the 


HOSTILITY   OF   THE    IROQUOIS.  149 

Five  Nations,  or  the  Iroquois  Confederacy ;  a  portion 
sought  refuge  in  the  neighborhood  of  Montreal  and  Que- 
bec, and  was  formed  into  reductions.  But  the  implacable 
Iroquois,  not  content  with  having  broken  up  the  Huron 
nation,  were  restless  until  they  had  absorbed  the  fragments 
into  themselves ;  hence  either  constant  forays  on  the 
Huron  reductions  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  or  wars  on  them 
and  their  allies  in  the  West,  or  secret  intrigues  and  invita- 
tions to  them  to  leave  the  shelter  of  French  protection  and 
come  to  live  in  the  Iroquois  country.  Without  these  con- 
siderations it  will  not  be  easy  to  understand  the  history  of 
the  New  York  and  the  Western  missions. 

Among  the  Jesuits  at  work  in  1641  on  the  Huron  mis- 
sions were  Charles  Raymbault  and  Isaac  Jogues.  That 
same  year  the  great  Indian  festival  of  the  dead  was  held. 
Among  the  invited  allies  and  relations  were  some  Chip- 
peways  from  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  at  the  eastern  end  of  Lake 
Superior.  They  solicited  the  missionaries  to  visit  their 
people.  Raymbault  and  Jogues  were  detailed  for  this 
purpose.  The  visit  was  but  a  short  one.  Both  mission- 
aries returned  to  Quebec,  Raymbault  to  recover  his  shat- 
tered health,  Jogues  to  get  mission  supplies  for  the  Huron 
work,  and  mayhap  in  time  to  labor  in  the  new  field  among 
the  Chippeways.  In  August,  1642,  he  was  paddling  his 
way  back  with  an  escort  of  Hurons,  two  donnes  (volunteer 
servants),  Rene  Goupil  and  Guillaume  Couture,  and  a 
goodly  supply  of  necessaries  for  his  brother  religious  in 
the  West,  when  they  were  suddenly  attacked  by  Mohawks. 

At  the  time  all  Canada  was  in  terror  of  these  savages. 
"  No  man  in  all  Canada,"  says  Parkman,  "  could  hunt,  fish, 
till  the  fields,  or  cut  a  tree  in  the  forest  without  peril  to 
his  scalp."  "I  had  as  lief,"  writes  one  of  the  Jesuits, 
Father  Vimont,  "  be  beset  by  goblins  as  by  the  Iroquois. 
The  one  are  about  as  invisible  as  the  other.      Our  people 


150  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xi. 

on  the  Richelieu  and  at  Montreal  are  kept  in  a  closer 
confinement  than  ever  were  monks  or  nuns  in  our  smallest 
convents  in  France."  Armed  with  firearms  which  they  had 
purchased  from  the  Dutch  of  Fort  Orange,  now  Albany, 
they  were  a  terror  to  all  Indians  and  more  than  a  match  for 
the  French.  They  despised  both  as  poltroons,  and  boasted 
they  would  wipe  them  both  off  the  face  of  the  earth. 
They  were  masters  of  the  upper  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
junction  of  the  Ottawa.  They  cut  off  all  trade  of  the 
French  with  the  Western  tribes,  and  intercepted  the  com- 
munications of  the  Quebec  Jesuits  with  their  brothers  in 
the  Huron  country.  The  spirit  of  the  Algonquin  tribes 
from  the  Saguenay  to  the  Lake  of  the  Nipissings  became 
broken ;  they  clung  for  safety  to  the  French.  But  this 
very  chnging  brought  down  on  the  French  the  hatred  and 
enmity  of  the  fierce  savages  of  the  Five  Nations. 

It  was  in  one  of  their  usual  forays  that  they  came  down 
upon  the  canoes  of  Jogues.  The  missionary  might  have 
escaped,  but  there  were  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy  con- 
verts not  yet  baptized.  He  surrendered  to  the  Iroquois. 
Then  began  days  of  torture  and  suffering.  Not  only 
Jogues  and  the  two  Frenchmen,  but  the  Christian  Hurons, 
men  and  women,  were  subjected  to  the  refined  cruelties  of 
their  foes,  and  bore  the  torments  with  the  stolidity  of  the 
Indian  nature  and  the  resignation  of  Christian  martyrs. 
Guillaume  Couture  was  adopted  into  the  tribe  on  account 
of  his  bravery  under  torture.  Rene  Goupil,  after  much 
suffering,  was  tomahawked.  Jogues  was  run  through  the 
gauntlet  at  every  village,  tied  to  the  stake  to  be  gashed 
and  slowly  burned,  had  his  hands  mutilated,  and  was  pre- 
served from  final  death  only  to  be  made  a  slave.  He  found 
some  work  to  do  among  the  captive  Christian  Hurons.  He 
roamed  the  woods  chanting  psalms  ;  he  carved  the  name  of 
Jesus  on  the  trees,  thus  consecrating  the  land  to  his  Master. 


JOGVES  AND  BKESSAXr.  \  5  i 

Finally  he  was  released  by  the  kindness  and  generosity  of 
the  Dutch  of  Fort  Orange,  whither  his  captors  had  taken 
him  on  more  than  one  visit.  He  was  sent  down  the 
Hudson  to  Manhattan,  where  he  was  welcomed  by  the 
population.  While  awaiting  a  vessel  for  Europe  he  found 
in  New  Amsterdam  two  Catholics,  a  Portuguese  woman 
and  an  Irishman.  He  reached  France  in  January,  1644. 
The  Pope  granted  him  a  dispensation  to  say  mass  with  his 
mutilated  hands.  That  same  year  he  returned  to  Canada, 
undaunted — nay,  encouraged — by  his  former  experiences. 
We  shall  meet  him  again  among  the  Iroquois. 

In  the  spring  of  1644,  Father  Bressani,  a  Roman,  met 
with  a  fate  like  unto  that  of  Jogues.  He  was  on  his  way 
to  the  Huron  mission  when  he  was  attacked  and  captured 
by  a  band  of  Mohawks.  In  the  July  following  Bressani 
wrote  from  his  captivity  to  the  general  in  Rome :  "  I 
do  not  know  if  your  Paternity  will  recognize  the  hand- 
writing of  one  you  once  knew  very  well.  The  letter  is 
soiled  and  ill  written,  because  the  writer  has  one  finger  of 
his  right  hand  left  entire,  and  cannot  prevent  the  blood 
from  his  wounds,  which  are  still  open,  from  staining  the 
paper."  He  goes  on  in  this  humble  and  moving  style  to 
detail  his  torments.  His  captors  had  split  his  hand  with  a 
knife  between  the  little  finger  and  the' ring-finger,  beaten 
him  with  sticks  till  he  was  covered  with  blood,  and  after- 
ward placed  him  on  one  of  their  torture-scaffolds  as  a 
spectacle  to  the  crowd.  Here  they  stripped  him,  and 
while  he  shivered  with  cold  from  head  to  foot,  they  forced 
him  to  sing.  The  children  had  their  turn — ordered  him 
to  dance,  at  the  same  time  thrusting  sharpened  sticks  into 
his  flesh  and  pulling  out  his  hair  and  beard. 

These  scenes  were  renewed  every  night  for  a  week. 
They  burned  him  with  live  coals  and  red-hot  stones,  forced 
him  to  walk  on  hot  cinders,  burned  off  now  a  finger-nail 


152  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Cua!>.  xi. 

and  now  the  joint  of  a  finger.  They  hung  him  by  the  feet 
with  chains ;  placed  food  for  the  dogs  on  his  naked  body, 
that  they  might  lacerate  him  as  they  ate.  "  I  could  not 
have  believed  that  a  man  was  so  hard  to  kill,"  writes  he 
in  the  letter  to  his  superior.  Finally  he  too  was  ransomed 
by  the  Dutch  of  Fort  Orange,  and  sent  back  to  France. 
The  following  }'ear  (1645)  '"'s  returned  to  Canada  and  was 
sent  to  the  Huron  missions.  Those  men  were  hungry  of 
martyrdom. 

While  Bressani  was  undergoing  his  sufferings  in  the 
Mohawk  country,  three  Iroquois,  caught  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Three  Rivers  by  Hurons,  were  having  their  feet 
burned  and  their  fingers  cut  ofT.  The  commandant  of  the 
fort,  Champfleur,  prevailed  on  the  Indian  torturers  to  sus- 
pend their  revenge  until  Montmagny,  the  governor  of 
Canada,  should  arrive  and  dispose  of  the  prisoners.  The 
governor  saw  the  possibility  of  using  the  three  captives  as 
a  means  of  concluding  peace  with  their  countrymen.  They 
were  sent  home  with  a  message  that  Onontio  (Big  Moun- 
tain, Montmagny),  the  name  ever  after  given  by  the 
Iroquois  to  the  governors  of  Quebec,  had  given  them 
their  lives,  and  that  he  still  held  in  his  possession  two  other 
prisoners  formerly  captured,  whom  he  should  likewise  re- 
mit if  peace  were*made  with  the  French.  Two  months 
afterward  came  an  embassy  from  the  Mohawk  nation. 
Chiefs  from  the  Huron  tribe  and  the  neighboring  nations 
along  the  St.  Lawrence  were  summoned  to  a  grand  council, 
and,  after  the  many  mutual  presents  and  speeches  usual  to 
Indian  diplomacy  had  been  disposed  of,  peace  was  con- 
cluded. The  Mohawk  ambassadors  took  the  path  home- 
ward, and  with  them  wentjogues,  on  a  political  as  well  as 
religious  embassy,  to  confirm  the  peace  and  to  found  a 
mission  under  the  title  "  Mission  of  the  Martyrs." 

He  retraced  the  route  every  mile  of  which  was  marked 


DEATH   OF  JOGUES.  I  53 

in  his  memory  by  former  sufferings:  the  Richelieu  River, 
Lake  Champlain,  Lake  George — that  he  christened  Lac 
St.  Sacrement  because  he  reached  it  on  the  eve  of  Corpus 
Christi ;  thence  by  land  to  Fort  Orange,  where  he  visited 
his  friends  and  protectors,  the  Dutch  traders  ;  thence  to  the 
towns  onthe  Mohawk  River.  A  council  was  held,  presents 
were  made,  the  speeches  were  spoken,  the  peace  was  rati- 
fied. His  political  mission  being  accomplished,  he  returned 
to  Quebec.  He  wished  to  make  his  report  to  the  gover* 
nor,  and  Mohawk  allies  had  advised  him  to  be  off  at  once, 
lest  the  Iroquois  of  the  other  tribes  who  were  not  parties 
to  the  treaty  should  fail  to  respect  his  ofifice  of  ambassador 
and  his  escort  of  Hurons.  After  reporting  as  to  the  suc- 
cess of  his  embassy,  his  superiors  ordered  him  to  return 
to  carry  out  the  second  part  of  his  work,  the  founding  of 
a  mission  among  the  Mohawks. 

Meanwhile  a  change  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  the 
Mohawks.  On  his  previous  visit  Jogues  had"  left  behind 
him  a  small  chest  containing  some  personal  effects.  Per- 
vert Hurons,  captives  among  the  Mohawks,  hinted  that  the 
chest  contained  a  sorcery  that  would  bring  evil  to  them, 
as  the  medicine  of  the  Black  Robes  had  brought  evil  to  the 
Huron  nation.  This  suspicion  was  rife  when  a  band  of 
Mohawk  warriors  met  Jogues  and  his  one  companion,  La- 
lande,  a  doiuic,  south  of  Lake  George.  They  seized  him 
and  led  him  in  triumph  to  their  town ;  here  he  was  beaten, 
and  strips  of  flesh  were  cut  from  his  back  and  arms.  It 
was  in  vain  that  the  soberer  and  better  savages  raised  their 
voices  in  his  defense.  He  was  doomed,  and  fell,  brained 
by  a  tomahawk,  and  with  him  his  companion.  The  date 
of  their  martyrdom  was  October  18,  1646,  and  the  scene 
the  present  village  of  Auriesville,  Montgomery  County, 
N.  Y.  A  small  Catholic  chapel  marks  the  spot.  The 
narrative  of  his  sufferings  and  death  was  drawn  up  under 


154 


THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xi. 


the  authority  of  the  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  and  attested 
by  oath  to  serve  in  any  process  of  canonization  that  might 
be  inaugurated.  The  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore 
(November,  1884)  formally  petitioned  the  holy  see  to  allow 
the  cause  of  his  canonization  to  be  introduced. 

After  the  death  of  Jogues  there  was  an  end  of  peace. 
The  war  of  the  Iroquois  against  the  Hurons  and  Canada 
continued  with  unabated  fury,  and  culminated  (1650)  in 
the  destruction  of  the  Huron  missions  and  the  scattering 
of  the  Huron  nation.  Success  made  the  Iroquois  bold  in 
the  extreme.  Montreal,  Three  Rivers,  Quebec,  the  three 
chief  settlements  of  the  French  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  were 
in  consternation  and  daily  fear.  The  fur-trade  was  ruined. 
Public  prayers  and  fasting  were  appointed  to  obtain  a 
cessation  of  this  terrible  state  of  things.  Peace  finally 
came,  but  not  without  the  price  of  another  martyr's  blood. 

It  was  the  summer  of  1653;  Father  Poncet,  out  on  an 
errand  of  charity,  a  few  miles  above  Cape  Rouge,  was  sur- 
prised by  an  ambuscade  of  Iroquois  and  carried  off  into  the 
Mohawk  towns.  He  trod  the  path  of  Jogues  and  Bressani ; 
was  frequently  beaten  in  the  run  of  the  gauntlet,  tortured 
by  fire  and  knife,  all  but  brought  to  death's  door.  While 
he  was  undergoing  this  slow  martyrdom,  sixty  Onondagas 
came  to  Montreal  to  treat  for  peace.  This  unusual  move 
is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the  Iroquois  were  at  war 
just  then  with  the  Fries,  their  western  neighbors,  and  it 
behooved  them  to  secure  themselves  on  the  side  of  the 
French.  One  war  at  a  time  was  their  policy.  Clouds 
rolled  away,  life  returned  to  the  colony,  the  fur-trade 
revived.  "  Yesterday,"  writes  the  Jesuit  superior  Le 
Mercier,  "  all  was  dejection  and  gloom,  to-day  all  is  smiles 
and  gayety.  If  the  Iroquois  have  their  hidden  designs,  so, 
too,  has  God."     Of  course  one  of  the  conditions  of  peace 


THE  MISSIONS  PLANNED.  155 

was  Poncet's  liberation.  He  readied  Montreal  October 
21,  1650. 

The  Iroquois  did  have  their  "  secret  designs,"  as  Le 
Mercier  conjectured.  At  the  very  moment  they  were 
making  peace  with  the  French  they  were  pursuing  those 
designs  with  their  usual  cunning.  They  wished  to  coax 
into  their  own  country  the  unhappy  remnant  of  the  Hurons 
who  were  living  on  the  Island  of  Orleans,  immediately  be- 
low Quebec.  The  Onondagas  and  the  Mohawks  were  com- 
petitors for  this  prize,  and  each  was  jealous  lest  the  other 
should  be  the  first  to  get  it.  Of  the  two  the  Onondagas 
had  the  deeper  scheme  and  the  better  chance  of  success. 
Among  them  were  already  settled  many  Huron  converts. 
If  a  Jesuit  mission  and  a  colony  of  French  were  planted 
in  the  Onondaga  country,  perhaps  the  Hurons  of  Orleans 
Island  might  be  more  easily  induced  to  emigrate. 

But  God,  too,  had  his  designs,  or  rather  the  Jesuits 
nourished  a  bold  plan.  Their  Huron  mission  had  been 
destroyed.  Among  the  Iroquois  were  many  of  their  former 
converts.  To  care  for  these  was  their  evident  duty.  Who 
knew  but  that  in  the  providence  of  God  the  transplanting 
of  those  Christian  Hurons  was  to  be  the  means  of  bringing 
the  Five  Nations  to  the  faith  and  opening  up  a  new  field 
to  Jesuit  zeal?  It  was  resolved,  before  taking  any  de- 
cisive step,  to  send  some  one  to  confirm  the  Onondagas  in 
their  peaceful  mood,  and  ascertain  the  sincerity  of  their 
petition  for  a  mission  and  a  colony.  The  ambassador 
chosen  was  Father  Simon  le  Moyne.  He  set  out  July  2, 
1653  ;  his  route  was  the  upper  St.  Lawrence  and  Lake  On- 
tario to  the  mouth  of  the  Oswego.  He  was  received  with 
due  pomp  and  great  joy.  Deputies  of  the  Senecas,  Oneidas, 
and  Cayugas  met  him  in  the  chief  village  of  the  Onondagas ; 
of  the  confederacy  only  the  Mohawks  were  absent.     The 


156  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xi. 

usual  presents  and  speeches  were  made  by  both  parties  with 
befitting  gravity,  and  the  French  were  invited  to  make  a 
settlement  on  Lake  Ontario.  On  his  way  back  to  Quebec 
to  report,  Le  Moyne  was  shown  a  spring  of  water  that  was 
tenanted,  so  the  Indians  said,  by  a  bad  spirit.  Le  Moyne 
found  it  to  be  salt-springs,  the  famous  Onondaga  springs. 
His  return  to  Quebec  brought  joy  to  the  colonists  on  the 
St.  Lawrence,  and  the  prospect  of  a  period  of  peace  and 
trade. 

However,  the  Mohawks  had  not  been  a  party  to  the 
treaty.  Their  allies  of  the  confederacy  were  busy  with 
war  on  the  Eries ;  indeed,  it  was  this  very  war  that  had 
brought  about  the  peace  with  the  French.  But  the 
Mohawks,  taking  no  part  in  the  Erie  war,  were  free  to 
continue  their  attacks  on  the  Hurons  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
and  they  were  doing  so  at  the  very  time  the  rest  of  the 
confederacy  were  entering  into  treaty  with  Canada.  The 
summer  following  Le  Moyne's  return  to  Quebec  a  deputa- 
tion of  Onondagas  arrived  to  give  further  assurances  of 
peace,  to  insist  on  the  planting  of  a  French  colony  among 
them,  and  to  offer  the  missionaries  the  most  delightful 
position  in  their  canton.  Before  sending  out  a  French 
colony  the  authorities  wisely  resolved  to  establish  the  mis- 
sion. Fathers  Chaumonot,  an  old  Huron  missionary,  and 
Dablon,  a  newcomer,  were  detailed  for  this  work.  They 
arrived  at  Oswego  September,  1654,  and  proceeded  thence 
to  Onondaga,  the  chief  town  of  the  tribe.  Councils  were 
held,  talks  were  frequent  and  long,  and  it  became  evident 
to  Chaumonot  that  without  the  immediate  planting  of  the 
French  colony  peace  could  not  be  preserved.  He  sent 
back  Dablon  with  this  information. 

Governor  and  Jesuits  finally  decided  to  act  accordingly. 
Major  Dupuys,  with  ten  soldiers,  thirty  French  coIonist.s, 
four  Jesuits,  Le  Mercier,  Menard,  Fremin,  Dablon,  and  two 


THE  MISSIONS  FOUNDED.  157 

lay  brothers  composed  the  colony.  They  were  received  by 
the  Onondagas  with  every  appearance  of  joy.  A  site  on 
Lake  Ganentaa,  now  Onondaga,  was  allotted  to  them. 
Dwellings,  or  rather  huts,  storehouses,  and  a  chapel  were 
built  anti  surrounded  with  a  palisade,  and  the  settlement 
was  christened  "  Mission  of  Our  Lady  of  Ganentaa."  This 
was  the  center  and  base  of  missionary  operations  among 
the  Iroquois.  West  of  Onondaga  were  the  Cayugas  and 
Senecas,  east  were  the  Oneidas  and  Mohawks.  No  better 
central  point  could  have  been  chosen.  Menard  set  out  for 
the  Cayugas,  Chaumonot  for  the  Senecas,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing spring  work  was  begun  among  the  Oneidas. 

Of  the  Five  Nations  the  Mohawks  alone  held  aloof  from 
the  missionaries,  and  pursued  their  work  of  war  and  en- 
slavement along  the  St.  Lawrence.  If  the  Onondagas 
were  about  to  incorporate  into  their  tribe,  as  they  hoped, 
the  remnant  of  the  Hurons  by  means  of  the  colony  and 
mission  they  had  solicited  and  obtained,  the  Mohawks 
were  bound  to  get  their  share  of  the  human  plunder  in  the 
old  Indian  fashion.  This  struggle  for  the  possession  of  the 
Hurons  was  the  wedge  that  split  the  confederacy.  For  the 
missions  which  the  Onondagas  had  invited,  and  the  other 
tribes,  Cayugas,  Senecas,  Oneidas,  had  allowed  and  ac- 
cepted, made  them  friends  of  France.  Years  afterward 
they  emigrated  to  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  took 
sides  with  the  Canadians  against  the  pagan  Mohawks  and 
their  allies,  the  English.  By  a  strange  fate  the  Hurons, 
whom  the  Five  Nations  had  denationalized,  disrupted  in 
their  turn  the  Iroquois  Confederacy.  History  is  full  of 
such  revenges  on  a  larger  scale. 

Meanwhile  the  missions  among  the  Onondagas,  Cayugas, 
Senecas,  and  Oneidas  were  giving  promise  of  splendid 
success.  In  fact,  the  Iroquois  were  receiving  the  faith 
more  readily  than  even  the  Hurons  had  done.     The  pris- 


158  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai>.  xi. 

oners  and  slaves  among  them  were  the  first  to  embrace 
the  faith,  as  in  the  early  centuries  of  Christianity.  The 
Christian  Hurons,  especially,  by  their  virtues  and  patience, 
wielded  a  beneficial  influence  over  their  conquerors.  The 
Iroquois  women  were  the  first  to  yield  to  the  church,  and, 
as  their  power  was  great  in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  they 
were  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  mission.  So  cheering  were 
the  tidings  reported  to  Quebec  that  more  laborers  were 
sent  to  reinforce  the  little  band  of  missionaries. 

However,  fair  as  were  the  appearances  among  the  tribes 
that  welcomed  the  missionaries,  a  secret  danger  was  hatch- 
ing ;  the  confederacy  was  seething  with  impatient  desire  to 
break  the  peace,  and  the  young  warriors  were  planning  the 
destruction  of  the  French  colonists.  The  Canadian  gov- 
ernor, D'Aillebout,  suspecting  the  conspiracy,  resolved  to 
have  hostages  in  his  hands,  suddenly  seized  all  the  Iroquois 
found  within  the  limits  of  the  Canadian  colonies,  and  ad- 
vised the  missionaries  of  the  danger  that  threatened  them. 
The  priests  and  the  colonists  assembled  within  the  palisade 
of  Ganentaa  not  any  too  soon,  for  immediately  around 
the  palisaded  fort  gathered  a  throng  of  Onondaga  warriors, 
impassive,  not  ready  yet  to  give  the  blow,  but  watchful  of 
their  imprisoned  guests.  The  reason  for  the  delay  is  to 
be  found  in  the  embarrassment  of  the  sachems  as  to  the 
hostages  held  in  Quebec  by  D'Aillebout. 

The  position  of  the  Europeans  was  becoming  desperate  ; 
the  blow  might  fall  at  any  time ;  they  must  bestir  them- 
selves ;  they  must  first  provide  means  of  escape  and  then 
make  their  escape.  The  first  was  the  easier ;  timber  was 
abundant,  the  carpenters  were  set  to  work  secretly,  and 
enough  boats  were  built  to  carry  off  all  the  French.  The 
second  was  not  so  easy  at  first  sight ;  however,  cunning 
and  boldness  made  a  way.  Among  the  many  superstitions 
of  the  Iroquois  was  one  that  concerned  dreams  and  entailed 


THE  MISSIONS  SUSPEA'DED.  159 

ridiculous  consequences.  If  in  answer  to  a  dream  Indians 
were  invited  to  a  feast,  they  were  obliged  to  eat  everything 
laid  before  them,  no  matter  how  large  the  quantity.  One 
of  the  young  Frenchmen  adopted  into  the  tribe  was  favored 
conveniently  with  a  dream  calling  for  a  banquet.  An  im- 
mense feast  was  made  ready  by  the  French,  and  the 
Onondaga  warriors  had  to  gorge  themselves  until  they 
were  overcome  by  the  lethargy  of  a  monstrous  digestion. 
The  Canadians  escaped  during  the  drunken  sleep  of  their 
jailers  and  arrived  at  Montreal  April,  1658.  The  missions 
were  suspended  and  a  long  and  cruel  war  followed.  Thus 
ended  the  first  attempt  to  introduce  Christianity  among 
the  Iroquois  of  New  York. 

An  orator,  relative  of  the  chief  sachem  of  the  Onondagas, 
Garakontie  by  name,  had  listened  to  the  teachings  of  the 
missionaries,  though  he  had  not  embraced  openly  the 
faith,  had  watched  carefully  the  effect  of  Christianity  on 
the  Christian  Iroquois  and  Hurons,  and  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  a  religion  necessary  for  the  civilization 
and  preservation  of  his  race.  After  the  departure  of  the 
missionaries  he  became  the  protector  and  consoler  of  the 
Christians  left  behind  and  of  the  captives  brought  in  dur- 
ing the  war  that  followed.  He  it  was  who,  in  1660,  in- 
fluenced his  tribe  to  send  a  deputation  to  Montreal  to  ask 
for  the  return  of  missionaries  and  also  for  a  colony  of  nuns. 
Small  confidence  was  reposed  by  the  French  in  any  promise 
or  solicitation  of  an  Iroquois  tribe.  However,  this  oppor- 
tunity was  seized  to  renew,  if  possible,  peace  and  mission- 
ary work.  The  veteran  I.e  Moyne  was  chosen  for  the  pur- 
pose. He  reappeared  again  in  Onondaga  in  1660,  and  for 
a  year  ministered  to  the  faithful  Hurons  and  the  Iroquois 
converts  of  the  former  mission.  But  his  stay  among  them 
was  short,  there  was  no  lull  in  the  hostilities,  and  after  his 
departure  the  war  raged  as  frightfully  as  ever.     But  now 


l60  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xi. 

Canada  was  aroused  to  put  forth  her  mightiest  efforts,  a 
large  force  of  regulars  was  sent  from  France,  one  after 
another  the  five  tribes  of  the  confederacy  were  worsted, 
and  by  the  end  of  1666  they  all  sued  for  peace.  This 
opened  a  new  era  for  mission  work,  and  the  Jesuits  thought 
their  dream  of  the  conversion  of  the  Iroquois  was  about  to 
be  realized. 

In  1667  were  sent  to  the  Mohawks  Fathers  Fremin, 
Bruyas,  and  Pierron.  They  began  work  in  the  village 
where  Jogues  had  met  his  death.  Two  thirds  of  its  popu- 
lation were  Christian  Algonquins,  who,  despite  the  long 
absence  of  missionaries,  had  persevered  in  the  faith ;  the 
women  especially  were  remarkable  for  their  strong  attach- 
ment to  the  church.  As  the  Jews  of  old,  in  the  midst  of 
the  nations  that  conquered  them,  were  the  providential 
means  of  spreading  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God  and 
his  revelation,  so  the  Hurons  among  the  pagan  Iroquois. 
Moreover,  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  who  had  died  in  this 
land,  no  less  than  that  of  those  who  had  given  their  lives 
laboring  in  the  Huron  missions,  was  pleading  with  Heaven 
and  was  about  to  spring  into  a  harvest  of  Christians.  The 
missionaries  were  solemnly  received  by  representatives  of 
the  whole  Mohawk  tribe  in  their  capital  village,  Tionnon- 
tuguen,  a  site  for  a  chapel  was  assigned  them,  the  chapel 
was  built  by  the  Mohawks  themselves,  and  thus  was 
founded  the  mission  of  St.  Mary  of  the  Mohawks.  Father 
Fremin  took  charge  of  it ;  Father  Pierron  was  dispatched 
to  Albany  to  conciliate  the  English  authorities,  and  thence 
returned  to  Quebec  to  report  on  the  success  and  prospects 
of  the  enterprise.  Father  Bruyas  was  assigned  to  work 
among  the  Oneidas  just  west  of  the  Mohawks.  He  was 
well  received,  a  chapel  was  built  for  him,  and  the  Indians 
crowded  to  listen  to  his  teaching.  This  was  the  mission  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier  of  the  Oneidas. 


THE  MISSIONS  RENEWED.  i6l 

Pierron's  visit  to  Quebec  had  for  immediate  result  the 
sending  to  the  Onondagas  of  Father  Julian  Garnier.  His 
welcome  was  cordial,  especially  on  the  part  of  Garakontie, 
who  throughout  the  war  had  remained  the  steadfast  friend 
of  the  French  and  the  Christians.  A  chapel  was  built  and 
regular  mission  work  began.  Meanwhile  the  brave  Gara- 
kontie, with  some  French  liberated  prisoners,  set  out  for 
Quebec  and  brought  back  two  fathers:  Milet,  who  was  to 
labor  among  the  Onondagas ;  and  De  Carheil,  who  passed 
on  to  the  Cayugas  immediately  west  of  the  Onondagas, 
and  there  set  up  the  mission  of  St.  Joseph.  Pierron,  leav- 
ing Milet  with  the  Onondagas,  took  Fremin's  place  in  the 
Mohawk  country,  and  Fremin  started  for  the  most  west- 
ern tribe  of  the  confederacy,  the  Senecas,  where  he  built  a 
chapel  and  founded  a  mission;  thus  by  the  close  of  1668 
each  of  the  five  tribes  had  its  church  and  missionary. 

Meanwhile,  villages  of  emigrated  Iroquois,  mostly  Cath- 
olic, had  been  formed  outside  the  present  territory  of  the 
United  States,  at  Quinte,  on  the  north  shore  of  Lake 
Ontario,  and  at  La  Prairie,  near  Montreal.  With  these 
and  other  future  reductions  in  Canada  we  have  not  to  do. 
This  colonization  scheme  had  been  all  along  the  policy  of 
the  Jesuits,  who  sought  to  withdraw  their  neophytes  from 
the  neighborhood  and  commerce  of  the  English,  whose 
influence  on  the  savages,  especially  through  brandy,  was 
detrimental  to  their  civilization  and  religion  ;  and  also  from 
commerce  with  those  Indians  who  remaine'd  attached  to 
their  medicine-men  and  old  superstitions.  The  converted 
Iroquois,  desirous  of  leading  truly  Christian  lives,  found  it 
difficult  to  do  so  among  their  pagan  relatives,  and  were 
only  too  glad  to  find  peace  and  quiet  in  those  Christian 
reductions. 

One  obstacle  to  the  success  of  the  work  of  the  mission- 
aries were  the  juggleries  of  the  medicine-men.     Another 


1 62  THE  JWMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xi. 

obstacle  was  drunkenness.  French  traders  themselves 
were  not  innocent  on  this  point,  though  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  authorities  in  Canada  had  made  stringent  laws  as 
to  the  selling  of  liquor  to  the  Indians.  But  the  evil  was 
prevalent,  especially  among  the  tribes  nearest  to  the  Eng- 
lish colonies,  who  were  restrained  by  no  laws  in  this  matter. 
So  crying  was  the  vice  among  the  Mohawks  that  Father 
Pierron  was  forced  to  appeal  to  the  humane  sense  of 
Lovelace,  the  governor  of  New  York,  through  a  petition 
he  presented  in  the  name  of  the  sachems.  The  answer  of 
Lovelace  was  honorable  and  Christian :  "  I  will  restrain  by 
severe  penalties  the  furnishing  of  any  excess  to  the  Indians. 
I  am  delighted  to  see  such  virtuous  thoughts  proceed  from 
heathens,  to  the  shame  of  many  Christians ;  but  this  must 
be  attributed  to  your  pious  instructions,  for  you  have  shown 
them  the  way  of  mortification  both  in  precept  and  practice." 
It  is  beyond  the  purpose  of  this  work  to  go  into  all  the 
minute  details  that  are  found  in  the  "  Relations  "  in  regard 
to  these  missions.  The  Huron  missions  had  been  a  glorious 
field  of  apostolic  zeal,  of  wonderful  conversions,  of  saintli- 
ness  among  the  neophytes ;  no  less  glorious  a  field  were 
the  Iroquois  missions.  Here  the  Jesuits  gave  examples  of 
devotedness  not  to  be  equaled  by  their  best  members  in 
any  other  quarter  of  the  world  ;  here  God's  grace  produced 
marvelous  holiness  in  many  a  child  of  the  forest ;  warriors 
proud  and  cruel  were  turned  into  humble  and  merciful  ser- 
vants of  the  cross,  women  and  maidens  were  made  as  chaste 
and  virtuous  as  any  of  the  female  saints  and  martyrs  of  the 
palmy  days  of  Christianity.  The  chapels  were  frequented 
morning  and  evening;  the  hymns  and  chants  of  the  old 
church  resounded  throughout  the  woods  of  northern  New 
York.  Many  who  were  not  admitted  to  baptism  were 
fervent  catechumens  and  regular  attendants  at  the  services. 
To  form  an  idea  of  the  work  done,  one  would  have  to  read 


QUARRELS   OF  KNGl.AXD   AM)   J-RAXCE.  \{^ 


J 


the  whole  third  volume  of  the  "  Relations  of  the  Jesuits." 
Between  the  years  1668  and  1678 — in  ten  years — there 
were  2221  baptisms  among  all  the  Iroquois  tribes.  But 
such  statistics  give  an  incomplete  idea  of  the  state  of  re- 
ligion among  them,  for  the  reason  that  it  was  the  policy  of 
the  fathers  to  lengthen  the  catechumenate  of  their  dusky 
disciples ;  so  that  the  number  of  attendants  at  instructions 
and  services  was  far  beyond  that  of  the  baptized. 

After  1678  a  new  obstacle  arose  to  interfere  with  the 
work  of  the  missionaries ;  no  longer  on  the  part  of  the 
Indians  themselves,  but  of  two  Christian  nations,  though 
both  at  the  time  were  governed  by  Catholic  kings  repre- 
sented in  their  American  provinces  by  Catholic  governors. 
England  and  France,  New  York  and  Canada,  began  to 
quarrel  over  the  possession  of  the  \'alleys  of  the  Mohawk 
and  the  Oswego.  To  their  mutual  jealousies  the  Iroquois 
missions  of  northern  New  York  were  sacrificed.  A  few 
explanations  are  needed  to  make  the  reader  understand 
the  cause  and  the  progress  of  the  quarrel. 

In  September,  1664,  the  Dutch  colonists  of  New  Am-i 
sterdam  surrendered  to  the  English  fleet,  commanded  byi 
Colonel  Nicolls ;  and  the  surrender  was  formally  approved', 
by  the  European  powers  in  the  Treaty  of  Breda,  July  2  1, 
1667.  New  Netherland  was  rechristened  New  York.  Fort 
Orange  became  Albany.  From  the  time  of  the  transfer  a 
rivalry  began  between  England  and  France  for  the  control 
of  the  Iroquois,  not  unlike  that  we  have  seen  between 
Canada  and  Massachusetts  for  the  control  of  the  Indians 
of  Maine.  The  foremost  of  the  French  governors  during 
this  period  was  Frontenac,  and  his  plan  was  not  only  to 
control  the  Iroquois,  but  also  all  the  Western  tribes  as  far 
as  the  Mississippi.  It  was  little  to  have  the  alliance  and 
the  trade  of  the  latter  unless  he  had  likewise  those  of  tlie 
former.      The  main  question  was  which  way  the  Western 


164  THE   ROM.iy  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xi. 

peltries  should  reach  the  East :  by  way  of  the  St. Lawrence 
and  Quebec,  or  by  way  of  the  Hudson  and  New  York. 
To  make  himself  master  of  this  latter  route  and  keep  the 
canoes  of  the  Western  tribes  from  the  waters  of  the  Hud- 
son, Frontenac  built  on  Lake  Ontario,  at  a  point  where 
Kingston  now  stands,  a  fort  to  which  he  gave  his  name. 

This  fort  was  meant  to  be  a  rallying-point  for  Western 
expeditions,  a  center  of  operations  against  the  Iroquois, 
and  a  market  where  both  Eastern  and  Western  tribes 
should  meet  for  trade.  It  was  admirably  situated  for  all 
these  purposes,  as  a  glance  at  the  map  will  show.  The 
French  policy  and  control  were  strengthened  a  few  years 
later  (1677)  by  another  fort,  built  at  Niagara  by  La  Salle. 
Moreover,  the  Iroquois,  since  they  had  obtained  firearms 
from  the  Dutch,  had  crushed  out  two  tribes  west  of  them, 
the  Andastes  and  the  Eries,  and  the  profits  of  the  fur-trade 
which  they  carried  on  with  New  York  induced  them  to 
extend  their  forays  farther  and  farther  westward.  This 
brought  them  in  collision  with  the  tribes  of  the  Miamis,  the 
Illinois  on  Lake  Michigan,  and  tlie  Algonquins  on  Lake 
Superior.  Now  these  were  allies  and  proteges  of  the 
French,  and  France  in  honor  could  not  abandon  them  to 
the  mercies  of  the  Five  Nations.  To  do  so  would  be  the 
destruction  of  the  trade  of  Canada  and  the  building  up  of 
the  trade  of  New  York.  The  governors  of  Canada  were 
compelled,  therefore,  to  restrain  by  force  the  western  ex- 
pansion of  the  Iroquois,  and  to  defend  their  Indian  allies. 
This  work  occupied  the  administrations  of  De  la  Barre,  who 
superseded  Frontenac,  of  Denonville,  and  again  of  Fronte- 
nac during  his  second  term. 

Dongan,  the  Catholic  governor  of  New  York,  claimed  in 
the  name  of  England  jurisdiction  of  all  the  territory  south 
of  Lake  Ontario,  and  considered  the  Iroquois  as  subjects 
of  the   English  crown,   though   that  proud  people   never 


DEC  LIKE   OE   THE   MlSSIOMS.  165 

acknowledged  the  claim,  but  constantly  asserted  its  inde- 
pendence of  the  two  European  rivals.  Dongan  held  that 
the  French  Jesuits  were  political  agents,  and  that  their  in- 
fluence on  the  Iroquois  was  disastrous  to  English  interests. 
His  aim  was  to  drive  them  out  of  the  territory ;  he  was 
willing  to  replace  them  by  English  Jesuits.  Very  sharp 
correspondence  passed  between  Quebec  and  New  York 
concerning  Fort  Niagara,  the  sale  of  liquor  to  the  Indians, 
the  control  of  trade  in  the  West,  and  the  political  influence 
of  the  missionaries.  The  instructions  of  the  French  court 
to  Denonville  were  to  exterminate  the  Iroquois,  sustain  the 
Western  allies,  and  oppose  the  schemes  of  Dongan.  So 
Canada  waged  a  vigorous  war  against  the  Iroquois ;  and 
Dongan  could  only  look  on,  giving  them  no  support  save 
by  advice  and  surreptitious  presents  of  powder  and  guns, 
since  France  and  England  were  at  peace.  But  after  the 
Stuarts  had  been  expelled  and  William  of  Orange  had  come 
to  the  throne  of  England,  war  broke  out  between  England 
and  France  in  Europe,  between  Canada  and  the  English 
colonies  in  America,  both  sides  being  helped  by  their  Indian 
allies;  the  war  lasted  until  the  Peace  of  Ryswick  (1697). 

How  fared  it  with  Iroquois  missions  during  those  years 
of  turbulence?  Fremin,  Pierron,  and  Garnier  withdrew 
from  the  Senecas  in  1683.  De  Carheil  was  driven  by  the 
chiefs  of  the  tribe  from  the  Cayugas  in  1684.  Only  two 
Jesuits  at  this  date  were  to  be  found  in  the  Iroquois 
country,  at  Onondaga;  they  were  brothers,  John  and 
James  de  Lamberville.  James  was  recalled  to  Canada  in 
1686,  and  John  remained  the  sole  representative  of  his 
church  amid  the  foes  of  his  country.  It  was  from  Denon- 
ville, the  governor  of  Catholic  Canada,  that  came  the  blow 
that  put  an  end  to  the  Iroquois  mission,  and  the  blow 
was  a  foul  deed  of  treachery.  Through  Father  John  de 
Lamberville  he  invited  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes  to  a  confer- 


t66  the  ROMAN  catholics.  [Chap.  xi. 

ence  (1687);  when  they  came  unsuspecting,  confiding  in 
the  Jesuit's  word,  the  governor  violently  seized  them,  and 
sent  them  in  chains  to  France  to  become  galley-slaves. 
He  had  used  the  missionary  for  his  vile  purpose. 

More  Christian  and  generous  than  their  European  foes, 
the  Iroquois,  instead  of  wreaking  vengeance  on  the  Jesuit 
whose  word  had  led  their  chiefs  into  the  toils  of  Denon- 
ville,  excused  him  from  any  part  in  the  treachery,  brought 
him  in  safety  to  the  nearest  French  post,  and  then  prepared 
for  war  to  the  death.  Nothing  shows  better  than  this 
noble  conduct  how  Christianity  had  begun  to  alter  pro- 
foundly the  fierce  nature  of  the  wildest  Indian  race  on  the 
continent.  With  the  departure  of  John  de  Lamberville 
in  the  spring  of  1687  closed  the  Iroquois  mission  founded 
twenty  years  before.  Some  work,  incidental  and  subsidiary, 
continued  to  be  done  among  the  Iroquois  by  the  chaplains 
stationed  at  the  French  posts  of  Crown  Point,  Niagara, 
Erie,  Waterford,  Fort  Du  Ouesne  (now  Pittsburg),  and  Fort 
Presentation  (now  Ogdensburg),  so  long  as  these  posts  re- 
mained in  possession  of  the  French.  But  these  were  at 
best  but  spasmodic  efforts  ;  the  period  of  organized  mission 
work  among  the  Five  Nations  had  passed  away  forever. 

The  jar  of  political  jealousies  and  human  avarice  arrested 
the  work  of  God  when  it  was  in  the  midway  of  a  progress 
that  promised  to  reach  perfection  in  time.  The  Huron 
missions  had  been  destroyed  by  the  Iroquois,  the  Iroquois 
missions  were  destroyed  by  Europeans.  Something,  how- 
ever, remained  of  the  work  of  the  Jesuits.  There  were 
Catholic  Iroquois  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
whither  they  had  emigrated  the  better  to  practice  their 
religion  away  from  the  neighborhood  of  their  pagan  tribes- 
men and  of  the  Protestant  Dutch  and  English.  They 
fought  by  the  side  of  the  French  against  the  heathen 
Iroquois  and  against  the  English  during  the  long  inter- 


THE   REMXAKTS   OF    T/lf.    IROQUOIS.  167 

colonial  struggles  for  the  mastery  of  the  North  American 
continent.  There  they  are  still  to  be  found,  at  Sault  St. 
Louis  or  Caughnawaga,  at  St.  Regis  or  Aquasasne,  at 
Canasadaga  or  the  Lake  of  the  Two  Mountains;  in  these 
missions  the  Catholic  Iroquois  number  about  three  thou- 
sand. Some  Oneidas  and  Onondagas,  with  a  considerable 
number  of  Senecas  and  Tuscaroras  who  joined  the  con- 
federacy after  the  mission  period,  remained  in  the  State  of 
New  York.  The  Mohawks  are  in  Upper  Canada,  a  few 
Oneidas  are  in  Wisconsin,  a  few  Senecas  in  the  Indian 
Territory,  miserable  and  degraded  remnants  of  the  proud- 
est of  tribes.  The  country  they  once  owned,  and  whence 
they  ruled  the  continent,  is  now  the  heart  of  the  Empire 
State  of  the  Union,  the  great  highway  over  which  millions 
of  Europeans  have  passed  to  the  conquest  and  occupation 
of  the  great  West. 


C 


CHAPTER   Xti. 

THE   NORTHWESTERN    MISSIONS. 

The  Western  missions  were  located  on  a  line  running 
southward  from  Lake  Superior  to  New  Orleans,  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Mississippi  mostly.  For  convenience' 
sake  we  divide  them  into  three  main  groups :  the  Ottawa 
missions,  the  Illinois  missions,  and  the  Louisiana  missions. 

The  country  bounded  on  the  east  by  Lake  Michigan,  on 
the  west  by  the  Mississippi,  on  the  north  by  Lake  Supe- 
rior, and  on  the  south  by  the  Illinois  River  was  the  home 
of  numerous  Algonquin  tribes,  chief  among  whom  were 
the  Illinois,  the  Miamis,  the  Chippeways,  the  Kickapoos, 
the  Foxes,  the  Mascoutins,  the  Sacs,  the  Menominees,  the 
Ottawas  (emigrants  from  regions  situated  on  the  river  of 
that  name),  and  various  bands  of  Hurons,  who,  after  the 
breaking  up  of  their  nation  by  the  Iroquois,  sought  new 
homes  farther  west.  In  this  country  were  located  the 
missions  that  go  for  convenience'  sake  by  the  name  of  one 
of  the  tribes  inhabiting  it,  the  Ottawa,  or  as  we  call  them, 
the  Northwestern. 

When  Cartier  came  to  Hochelaga  (now  Montreal)  in 
1535,  he  was  told  of  Western  tribes  from  whom  the  Indians 
on  the  St.  Lawrence  received  copper  in  exchange  for  their 
goods.  An  Algonquin  chief  from  the  West  showed  Cham- 
plain  (1609)  a  piece  of  copper  a  foot  in  length.  Sagard, 
the  Recollect,  one  of  the  first  band  of  missionaries  imported 
by  Champlain,  mentions  in  his  "  Histoire  du  Canada  "  that 

168 


THE  JESUITS   OX  LAKT.    SUPERIOR.  1 69 

two  voyageurs,  Brule  and  Grenolle,  returned  from  the  dis- 
tant West  with  an  ingot  of  red  copper  and  a  description  of 
Lake  Superior,  that  flowed  into  Lake  Huron  by  a  fall  which 
at  first  was  called  Sault  de  Gaston  and  afterward  Sault 
Ste.  Marie.  Jean  Nicollet,  starting  from  Quebec  July, 
1634,  paddled  through  Lake  Huron,  the  Straits  of  Mack- 
inaw, and  Lake  Michigan  into  a  great  bay  on  the  western 
shore.  The  people  dwelling  there  were  called  by  the 
Algonquins  Ouinipegous  (Winnebagos),  "people  of  the  salt 
or  bad-smelling  waters  ;"  French  voyageurs  translated  the 
name  into  "  Puants,"  and  the  bay  (now  Green  Bay)  was 
long  known  in  Canadian  literature  as  "  La  Bale  des  Puants." 
Nicollet  was  told  by  the  natives  that,  if  he  followed  the 
watercourses  emptying  into  the  bay  during  three  days  to 
a  large  river  (the  Wisconsin),  no  doubt  he  would  come  to 
the  sea.  Nicollet  misunderstood  them ;  they  meant  the 
Mississippi. 

In  1 64 1  some  Chippeways  from  the  junction  of  Lakes 
Superior  and  Huron,  the  Sault,  visited  their  kindred  in 
the  Huron  country  on  the  occasion  of  the  great  feast 
of  the  dead.  The  Huron  missions  were  just  then  in  a 
flourishing  condition.  So  impressed  were  the  visitors  by 
what  they  heard  and  saw  that  they  invited  the  Jesuits  to 
their  country.  Two  of  the  missionaries,  Raymbault  and 
Jogues,  were  detailed  to  accompany  them  home.  The  in- 
tention was  not  to  found  a  mission  at  once,  but  rather  to 
reconnoiter  the  ground.  Two  thousand  Indians  gathered 
at  the  Sault  to  see  the  Black  Robes  celebrate  mass,  and  to 
listen  to  their  instructions.  After  a  short  sojourn  the  two 
fathers  departed,  with  the  hope  of  returning  to  this  prom- 
ising field  at  some  later  time. 

The  Huron  missions  were  destroyed  in  1648,  the  Hurons 
were  scattered,  and  many  sought  refuge  in  the  West.  It 
was  ten  years  and  more,  however,  before  the  missionaries 


lyO  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xil. 

followed  their  exiled  neophytes  and  penetrated  beyond 
Lake  Huron.  In  the  year  i66i,  on  St.  Teresa's  day, 
October  15th,  Father  Menard  reached  a  bay  on  the  south- 
ern shore  of  Lake  Superior,  which  he  called  St.  Teresa's 
Bay  (now  Keweenaw  Bay).  Here  he  began  a  mission, 
"composed,"  he  writes,  "of  a  flying  church  of  Christian 
Indians  and  of  such  as  God's  mercy  has  gathered  in  here." 
A  band  of  Christian  Hurons  far  inland  to  the  south  invited 
him  to  visit  them  in  the  spring.  He  started  with  a  single 
servant.  The  route  was  full  of  swamps,  streams,  and  port- 
ages; he  became  separated  from  his  companion,  and  was 
never  seen  again ;  in  all  probability  he  was  murdered  by 
some  prowling  Indian. 

Four  years  later  (1665),  Claude  Allouez,  who  was  sent 
out  to  take  the  place  of  the  luckless  Menard,  set  up  his 
mission  in  Ashland  Bay,  at  a  spot  called  La  Pointe  du 
Saint  Esprit.  He  traveled  constantly  from  tribe  to  tribe, 
came  in  contact  with  the  Sioux,  and  wrote  home  about 
"  the  great  water,  the  Mississippi."  His  labors  were  hard, 
his  success  was  small  and  slow.  After  two  years  he  re- 
turned to  Quebec  for  much-needed  supplies,  and  received 
as  companion  Louis  Nicolas.  The  two  preached  to  twenty- 
five  different  tribes,  but  they  gathered  only  few  within  the 
church.  Were  it  not  for  the  fugitive  Hurons  it  could  hardly 
be  said  that  they  found  any  Christians  to  minister  to.  In 
1668  more  assistance  came — Marquette  with  a  lay  brother ; 
and  next  year  Dablon  arrived  to  be  the  superior  of  the 
Western  missions;  two  years  later  Druillettes  and  Andre 
increased  the  force.  The  work  in  the  West  was  beginning 
to  assume  an  organized  form,  and  central  points  were  chosen 
for  mission  sites. 

Such  a  point  was  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  a  noted  fishing-place, 
for  then,  as  to-day,  the  rapids  were  full  of  whitefish,  and 
Indians  from  a  distance  came  thither  in  crowds.    Another 


MlSSIOX  CENTERS.  17I 

center  was  La  Poiiite  (now  Ashland).  Here  were  Chris- 
tian Hurons  and  Ottawas,  fugitives  from  the  rage  of  the 
Iroquois,  and  thither  came  yearly  bands  of  warriors  from 
many  tribes  to  trade  with  the  Frencli  bush-rangers. 
Michilimackinaw  (now  Mackinaw)  and  the  great  Manitoulin 
Island  at  the  western  extremity  of  Lake  Huron  were  also 
refuges  of  Hurons  and  Ottawas,  and  well-frequented  places 
of  barter ;  these  too  were  chosen  as  mission  sites.  Of  the 
two,  Mackinaw,  with  its  Church  of  St.  Ignatius,  was  the 
more  important.  There  was  another  spot  in  that  Western 
country  famous  for  fish  and  game — Green  Bay ;  in  its 
neighborhood  were  a  motley  crowd  of  dusky  inhabitants, 
Menominees,  Pottowatomies,  Winnebagos,  Sacs,  Mas- 
coutins,  Miamis,  Kickapoos,  Outagamies.  As  early  as 
1669  Allouez  founded  here  the  mission  of  St.  Francis 
Xavier.     These  were  the  early  mission  posts. 

While  the  Jesuits  were  taking  possession  of  the  country 
for  God,  French  officers  were  taking  possession  for  the 
king  of  France ;  while  the  Jesuits  were  in  pursuit  of  souls, 
"  coureurs  de  bois  "  (bush-rangers)  were  in  pursuit  of 
peltries;  while  Jesuits  were  bringing  to  the  Indians  the 
pure  and  elevating  teachings  of  the  Gospels,  fur-traders 
were  bringing  them  the  immoralities  and  the  fire-water  of 
civilization.  In  order  to  take  formal  possession  of  the  coun- 
try, Talon,  Intendant  of  New  France,  commissioned  Sieur 
de  St.  Lusson  as  his  deputy  to  meet  the  Western  tribes 
and  raise  among  them  and  over  them  the  flag  of  France. 
The  ambassador  was  guided  by  Perrot,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  French  voyageurs,  especially  for  the  reason 
that  he  has  left  behind  an  account  of  his  various  explora- 
tions. In  May,  1671,  the  representatives  of  fourteen  tribes 
met,  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  the  French  commissioner  and  four 
Jesuits,  Dablon,  Druillettes,  Allouez,  Andre.  A  large  cross 
was  blessed  and  planted  in  the  soil,  while  the  Vexilla  Regis 


T72  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICf^.  [Chap.  xii. 

was  sung.  Alongside  the  cross  was  fixed  a  cedar  post  with 
a  metal  plate  bearing  the  royal  arms ;  with  drawn  sword 
Talon  claimed  in  the  name  of  Louis  XIV.  all  countries  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  declared  the  nations  living  therein  vassals 
of  PVance.  Then  Allouez  delivered  a  discourse  to  the 
Indians — who  of  course  had  no  understanding  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  proceedings — in  which  he  spoke  much  of  the 
King  of  heaven  and  not  a  little  of  the  king  of  France. 

The  missions  of  the  West  do  not  record  the  bloody 
martyrdoms  that  marked  those  of  the  Huron  and  the 
Iroquois  nations.  The  absence  of  any  cruelties  inflicted  on 
the  missionaries  is  evidence  that  already  Christianity,  now 
in  contact  with  the  tribes  for  many  years,  had  gained  their 
respect  and  was  beginning  to  soften  their  fierce  natures. 
But  here  more  than  elsewhere  the  missionaries  had  to 
suffer  from  the  rigor  of  the  climate,  the  dangers  of  long 
voyages  by  water  and  land,  the  absence  of  the  comforts 
of  civilization  as  to  food,  dwelling,  society,  and  from  the 
opposition  and  obstacles  by  which  their  work  was  im- 
peded: opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Indians — medicine- 
men and  polygamy ;  on  the  part  of  the  French  traders — 
immorality  and  brandy.  It  is  no  wonder  the  success  of 
the  missionaries  was  slow,  not  only  in  gaining  new  con- 
verts, but  even  in  keeping  loyal  to  Christianity  the  former 
Huron  neophytes  scattered  throughout  the  Western  ter- 
ritory. Moreover,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind,  as  explained 
elsewhere,  that  success  is  to  be  measured  not  so  much  by 
the  number  of  baptisms  at  any  one  period  as  by  the  silent 
influence  of  Christian  teaching  on  the  Indian  nature.  It 
must  also  be  remembered  that  the  catechumens  always 
outnumbered  the  baptized. 

From  the  "  Relations  of  the  Jesuits  "  a  few  items  are 
gathered  that  give  some  idea  of  the  work  done.  At  La 
Pointe,  Allouez  was  despairing  of  making  any  advance,  and 


SUCCESS  OF   THE  MISSIONARIES.  I  73 

was  about  to  leave  for  more  promising  fields,  when  one 
hundred  Indians  presented  themselves  for  baptism ;  they 
renounced  polygamy  and  the  ancestral  superstitions,  and 
thenceforward  the  humble  chapel  became  too  small  for  the 
attending  crowds.  When  Marquette  came,  in  1669,  to  re- 
place Allouez,  he  found  that  two  villages  out  of  five  around 
his  central  mission  were  overwhelmingly  Christian.  While 
Marquette  was  at  this  mission,  its  inhabitants,  fleeing  before 
the  Sioux,  the  Iroquois  of  the  West,  moved  to  Mackinaw, 
where  the  mission  of  St.  Ignatius  was  founded  in  1671.  It 
was  from  this  point  that  the  famous  Jesuit  set  out,  in  com- 
pany with  Joliet,  for  the  voyage  down  the  Mississippi  that 
has  made  his  name  immortal.  By  the  year  1677  Mackinaw 
counted  eighteen  hundred  Christians ;  no  Christian  reduc- 
tion in  Canada  could  show  more  piety  and  virtue  or  a 
better  attendance  on  religious  duties.  The  Christians  of 
Manitoulin  Island,  mostly  refugees  from  the  former  Huron 
missions,  were  numerous  enough  to  occupy  the  time  of  one 
or  even  two  missionaries ;  we  have  no  data  for  getting  at 
their  exact  number.  At  Green  Bay,  where  the  mission  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier  had  been  founded  by  Allouez  (1670), 
Andre  was  in  charge  of  a  community  of  five  hundred 
souls;  this  number  gradually  increased,  and  in  1676  a  fine 
church  was  built,  due  mostly  to  the  generosity  of  the 
French  traders,  and  chiefly  of  Perrot.  In  1802  there  was 
dug  up  at  Depere,  Wis.,  a  monstrance  fifteen  inches  high, 
bearing  around  the  base  the  following  inscription  in  French  : 
"  This  monstrance  was  given  by  M.  Nicolas  Perrot  to  the 
mission  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  at  Bay  of  Puants,  1686." 

At  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  Druillettes,  who  was  settled  there 
in  1670,  and  had  the  reputation  of  a  saint  among  the  tribes, 
baptized  one  hundred  and  twenty  children  and  three  hun- 
dred adults ;  he  changed  the  face  of  the  country,  and  a 
wave  of  Christianity  swept  over  the  surrounding  region. 


1/4  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

An  offshoot  of  the  mission  of  Green  Bay  was  that  of  St. 
James,  located  to  the  south  among  a  medley  of  tribes — 
Illinois,  Mascoutins,  Kickapoos,  Miamis — all  of  the  Algon- 
quin family.  Allouez  visited  them  in  1672,  was  so  well 
received  that  he  founded  here  a  permanent  mission,  and 
recorded  two  hundred  baptisms  for  the  first  year.  To 
these  missions  there  were  many  outposts  where  traders 
were  stationed,  which  must  have  been  visited  occasionally 
by  the  missionaries.  A  map  of  1684,  supposed  to  be  the 
work  of  the  voyageur  Franquelin,  recording  the  observa- 
tions of  twelve  years,  shows  a  Fort  St.  Croix,  at  the  portage 
between  the  sources  of  the  St.  Croix  and  of  a  stream  flow- 
ing into  Lake  SujDerior ;  a  Fort  St.  Nicolas,  named  in  honor 
of  Perrot,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Wisconsin,  the  present  site 
of  Prairie  du  Chien ;  a  Fort  St.  Antoine,  at  the  lower  ex- 
tremity of  Lake  Pepin,  on  the  eastern  bank,  just  above  the 
confluence  of  the  Chippewa  with  the  Mississippi.  The 
Minnesota  River  is  marked  on  the  map  "  Les  Mascoutens 
Nadouescioux,"  the  name  indicating  that  it  flowed  through 
the  country  of  the  Prairie  Sioux.  A  later  map,  of  1703, 
names  the  Minnesota  River  St.  Pierre,  in  compliment  to 
Pierre  le  Sueur,  who  had  explored  the  river  to  its  head- 
waters. One  of  the  Jesuits  is  known  to  have  gone  as  far 
inland  as  Fort  St.  Antoine;  for  "on  the  8th  of  May, 
1689,  at  the  post  St.  Antoine,"  writes  Mr.  Neill  in  Winsor 
(vol.  iv.,  p.  195),  "  in  the  presence  of  Father  Marest,  Pierre 
le  Sueur,  and  others,  Perrot  took  possession  of  the  country 
along  the  rivers  St.  Croix,  St.  Pierre,  and  of  the  region  of 
Mille  Lacs,  in  the  name  of  the  king  of  France."  It  was  at 
a  later  period  that  a  fort  was  built  midway  in  Lake  Pepin, 
on  the  western  bank  of  the  river,  near  the  present  village 
of  Frontenac,  Minn. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Western  missions  when 
the  last  "  Relation  "  was  written,  in  1672.     Henceforth  our 


MARQUETTE    UX    THE   MISSISSIPPI.  175 

knowledge  of  Western  evangelization  must  be  taken  from 
other  sources,  mostly  incidenttil  allusions  of  travelers. 
Meanwhile  two  voyages  had  taken  place  toward  the 
South  that  opened  a  new  and  wider  field ;  and  one  of 
these  voyages  brought  back  to  the  American  missions  the 
Recollects,  the  pioneers  of  the  work,  W'ho,  if  they  did  not 
stay  long  and  effect  much  as  missionaries,  yet  acquired 
great  fame  as  explorers.  I  refer  to  the  voyages  of  Joliet 
and  Marquette,  of  Hennepin  and  La  Salle. 

It  was  on  account  of  his  known  zeal  and  success  in  the 
conversion  of  the  Indians,  and  of  his  proficiency  in  the  lan- 
guages of  the  Western  tribes,  that  Marquette  was  chosen 
by  his  superior  to  accompany  Joliet  in  the  duty,  assigned 
to  the  latter  by  the  Intendant  Talon,  of  exploring  the  great 
Western  river.  In  May,  1673,  they  set  out  in  two  canoes, 
with  five  men,  some  Indian  corn  and  jerked  meat,  and  a 
few  bales  of  goods  suitable  for  presents  to  the  natives. 
They  passed  over  to  Green  Bay,  up  the  Fox  River,  through 
Lake  Winnebago,  down  the  Wisconsin,  and  emerged  on 
the  "broad  bosom  of  the  Mississippi.  The  portage  from 
the  head-waters  of  the  Fox  to  the  head-waters  of  the 
Wisconsin  was  only  two  miles  at  that  time.  Sixty  leagues 
below  the  Wisconsin  they  came  to  a  village  inhabited  by 
natives  who  called  themselves  Illini  or  "  men,"  superior 
men,  tJie  men ;  they  were  also  known  as  Peorias,  and  be- 
longed to  a  loose  confederation  of  five  or  six  tribes  that 
went  by  the  general  name  of  Illini;  the  "  ois  "  termina- 
tion was  added  by  the  French  for  the  sake  of  euphony. 
Marquette  had  already  met  representatives  of  this  nation, 
and  understood  sufficiently  their  language,  a  dialect  of  the 
Algonquin  or  Algic  family.  He  promised  to  visit  them  on 
his  return  and  establish  a  mission  among  them. 

The  painted  rocks  of  Alton,  revered  as  manitous,  the  in- 
flow of  the  Missouri,  the  Grand  Tower  below  the  Kaskaskia, 


176  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

the  confluence  of  the  Ohio,  and  other  remarkable  features 
of  the  great  continental  arterj^  were  noticed  and  recorded 
by  the  wondering  voyageurs,  as  with  paddle  and  sail,  when 
the  wind  favored,  they  floated  down  until  they  reached  a 
village  conjectured  to  be  not  far  from  the  confluence  of  the 
Arkansas.  They  went  no  farther,  being  persuaded  that  the 
river  flowed  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  not  east  into  the 
Atlantic,  nor  west  into  the  Pacific.  This  discovery  of  the 
river's  trend  was  the  main  purpose  of  their  journey.  To 
go  farther  would  be  to  expose  themselves  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  Spaniards,  who  were  known  to  hold  all 
the  southern  country.  In  July  they  turned  their  canoes 
up-stream.  At  the  confluence  of  the  Illinois  they  entered 
that  river  and  paddled  up  to  Peoria  Lake,  where  they 
made  a  short  stay.  "  Here,"  says  Marquette,  in  his 
"  Voyage  et  Decouverte  de  quelques  pays  et  nations 
de  I'Amerique  Septentrionale,"  published  in  1681,  "I 
preached  for  three  days  the  mysteries  of  our  faith ;  as  we 
were  embarking  they  brought  to  me  a  dying  infant,  which 
I  baptized  at  the  edge  of  the  water."  Higher  up  the 
stream  they  came  to  another  village,  called  Kaskaskia(not  to 
be  confounded  with  a  later  Kaskaskia  on  the  Mississippi), 
containing  seventy-four  cabins.  So  cordial  was  their  re- 
ception that  Marquette  promised  to  come  back  and  in- 
struct them.  Finally,  by  way  of  the  Chicago  ^  portage, 
they  arrived  at  St.  Francis,  Green  Bay,  four  months  after 
having  left  it ;  having  traveled  within  that  time  twenty- 
seven  hundred  miles.  Here  Marquette  rested  from  the 
fatigues  of  the  journey,  that  had  seriously  impaired  his  con- 
stitution, and  meanwhile  wrote  the  journal  of  his  voyage. 
In   October,    1674,   came  to  him   from   his  superior  in 

'  In  a  relation  made  by  Cadillac  (1695)  to  the  governor  of  Quebec  (Margry, 
vol.  v.,  p.  123),  he  states  that  the  word  "  Chicago  ''  means  "  river  of  garlic," 
"  because  a  very  great  quantity  of  it  grows  there." 


DEATH   OF  MARQUETTE.  177 

Quebec  the  permission  to  go  found  a  mission  on  the  Illinois 
River,  as  he  had  promised.  Winter  overtook  him  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Chicago  River.  He  and  his  companions 
moved  up  its  frozen  surface  about  four  miles,  following  the 
south  branch,  and  built  a  cabin  in  which  they  wintered, 
the  first  white  habitation  on  the  site  of  the  great  city  of 
Chicago.  It  was  a  dreary  winter  for  Marquette ;  the  dis- 
ease that  was  to  carry  him  off,  dysentery,  had  fastened  on 
him.  On  the  8th  of  April  he  arrived  at  the  village  of  the 
Kaskaskias,  near  the  site  of  the  present  town  (5f  Utica,  and 
began  a  mission  which  he  named  "  The  Immaculate  Con- 
ception of  the  Blessed  Virgin."  But  he  could  not  labor; 
his  illness  increased  ;  he  decided  to  return  to  one  of  the  older 
missions,  St.  Francis  or  St.  Ignatius,  for  rest  and  repair. 

He  seems  to  have  traveled  homeward  by  way  of  the 
St.  Joseph  River,  and  thence  skirted  the  eastern  shore  of 
Lake  Michigan,  as  high  up  as  a  small  stream  flowing  into 
the  lake  from  western  Michigan.  It  was  not  the  river  that 
now  bears  his  name,  but  a  smaller  stream.  Here  he  must 
rest;  he  could  go  no  farther;  his  companions  built  a  little 
bark  cabin,  and  made  the  dying  missionary  as  comfortable 
as  they  could.  The  priest,  knowing  the  end  was  nigh, 
heard  their  confessions ;  and,  when  he  felt  the  agony 
approaching,  he  placed  in  their  hands  his  crucifix,  made 
before  it  his  profession  of  faith,  then  entered  into  a  silence 
broken  from  time  to  time  by  pious  ejaculations,  and  expired 
(May  18,  1675).  Before  dying  he  had  designated  the  spot 
where  he  wished  to  be  buried,  had  blessed  water  with 
which  they  were  to  sprinkle  his  body  and  grave,  and  had 
given  them  instructions  how  to  lay  out  his  remains.  His 
sorrowing  companions  obeyed  the  directions,  and  over  his 
grave  they  planted  a  rude  cedar  cross,  then  wended  their 
way  sadly  to  St.  Ignatius,  Mackinaw. 

Two  years  afterward  (1677)  a  part}'  of  Christian  Indians 


178  THE  ROMAS'  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xn. 

from  Mackinaw,  hunting  in  the  vicinity  of  Marquette's 
grave,  disinterred  the  remains,  cleaned  the  bones  of  all 
flesh,  according  to  their  custom,  placed  them  in  a  birch- 
bark  box,  and  transported  them  to  Mackinaw.  Word 
reached  the  mission,  through  couriers  dispatched  ahead, 
of  the  coming  of  this  strange  funeral ;  hundreds  of  canoes 
flew  out  to  join  in  the  train,  and  thus,  amid  the  doleful 
strains  of  the  Requiem,  the  Dies  Irae,  and  Indian  death- 
hymns,  all  that  remained  of  the  good  and  heroic  Marquette 
— his  fleshl^s  bones — was  rowed  into  the  mission  harbor, 
reverently  received  by  his  religious  brethren,  Pierson  and 
Nouvel,  and  deposited  with  religious  rites  under  the  floor 
of  the  log  chapel.  In  the  process  of  time,  as  we  shall  see, 
the  mission  was  abandoned  ;  the  tomb  was  utterly  forgotten 
and  unknown  until  1877,  when  it  was  discovered  by  a 
Michigan  priest.  Father  Jacker.  A  modest  fence — nothing 
more — now  surrounds  the  hallowed  spot. 

The  second  voyage  that  enlarged  the  field  of  the  West- 
ern missions  was  that  of  Robert  Cavelier,  Sieur  de  la  Salle. 
This  remarkable  man  was  born  at  Rouen,  November  22, 
1643,  ^"d  in  early  manhood,  it  is  said,  was  teacher  in  a 
Jesuit  college  in  France.  In  after  life  he  was  far  from 
bearing  them  any  good  will.  He  sailed  for  Canada  in  the 
spring  of  1666,  and  received  from  the  Sulpitians  a  grant 
of  wild  land  ten  miles  north  of  Montreal ;  the  place  was 
derisively  named  by  his  neighbors  La  Chine,  on  account 
of  La  Salle's  dreams  and  talk  of  a  western  passage  to 
China.  From  dreaming  he  soon  passed  to  action,  and 
received  from  the  proper  authorities  a  commission  to  ex- 
plore the  West  and  permission  to  trade  on  his  OMm  account, 
in  order  to  defray  the  expenses  of  his  explorations.  About 
the  same  time  the  Sulpitians  of  Montreal  were  preparing 
to  extend  their  missionary  work  toward  the  West;  an  ex- 
pedition for  the  purpose  was  fitted  out  under  the  manage- 


SIEUK   DE    LA    SALLE.  \  79 

ment  of  Fathers  Dollier  de  Casson  and  Rene  de  Gallinee. 
The  La  Salle  and  the  Sulpitian  parties  started  together 
July,  1669,  and  kept  together  until  they  reached  the  south- 
ern shore  of  Lake  Ontario,  at  a  village  on  the  Genesee 
River.  Here  they  parted,  for  what  reason  does  not  con- 
cern us.  The  Sulpitians  continued  their  route  northwest- 
ward by  way  of  the  lakes ;  but  finding  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie 
that  the  Jesuits  had  preceded  them  and  established  missions 
throughout  the  country,  they  retraced  their  steps  to  Mon- 
treal. Meanwhile  whither  went  La  Salle  ?  It  is  a  debated 
question  ;  and  as  it  does  not  concern  the  subject  in  hand, 
we  shall  not  enter  into  it.  We  are  content  with  saying 
that  if,  as  some  hold,  he  descended  the  Ohio  to  the  present 
site  of  Louisville,  he  opened  a  new  route  of  trade  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  French  claim  to  the  valley  of  the 
Ohio  and  all  its  confluents. 

Joliet  and  Marquette  had  well-nigh  demonstrated  the 
fact  that  the  Mississippi  emptied  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
La  Salle  wished  to  see  for  himself,  and,  moreover,  he  con- 
jectured that  by  occupying  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  the  entrances  of  Lake  Ontario  by  a  fort  at  Kingston, 
and  of  Erie  by  a  fort  at  Niagara,  the  first  links  of  a  chain 
would  be  forged  that  would  give  France  command  of  the  in- 
terior of  the  continent  and  shut  England  to  the  seaboard  east 
of  the  Alleghanies.  He  made  two  voyages  to  France  (in 
1 674  and  in  1677)  to  advance  his  project,  received  a  patent 
of  nobility,  was  invested  with  the  proprietorship  of  Fort 
Frontenac,  with  a  large  contiguous  territory,  was  granted 
privileges  of  trade  that  almost  amounted  to  a  monopoly, 
and  was  commissioned  to  make  further  explorations  in  the 
West.  In  his  last  voyage  to  Europe  he  secured  an  invalu- 
able lieutenant  in  a  Neapolitan,  Henri  de  Tonti,  or  Tonty, 
and  missionaries  in  the  following  Recollects :  Louis  Hen- 
nepin, Gabriel  de  la  Ribourde,  Zenobius  Membre,  Melithon 


l8o  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

Watteau.  They  were  natives  of  Flanders.  The  choice 
shows  evidently  La  Salle's  opposition  to  the  Jesuits.  He 
knew  that  the  latter  were  already  in  possession  of  the 
Western  field,  and  that  the  introduction  of  another  order  in 
the  same  region  would  be  taken  as  a  mark  of  hostility. 

It  is  not  my  province  to  narrate  in  detail  the  voyages, 
the  trials,  the  final  triumph  of  La  Salle.  Few  pages  in 
history — none  in  the  records  of  this  continent — exhibit  a 
more  sublime  courage,  a  more  romantic  career.  I  am 
concerned  with  the  story  only  so  far  as  the  work  of  the 
missionaries  goes.  In  November  the  expeditionary  corps 
were  at  the  outlet  of  the  Niagara  channel,  where  a  fort,  or 
blockhouse,  was  constructed ;  a  garrison  was  left  to  man 
it,  a  chapel  was  built,  and  Father  Watteau  was  detailed 
from  the  band  to  be  the  chaplain  of  Fort  Niagara.  The 
rest  embarked  on  a  small  schooner,  built  in  a  few  months, 
sail-rigged,  and  bearing  some  small  guns.  Having  launched 
the  craft,  named  the  "  Griffin,"  they  sailed  through  Erie, 
Lake  St.  Clair  (so  named  in  honor  of  the  saint  of  the  day, 
August  lOth),  through  the  Strait  of  Detroit,  past  Mackinaw, 
Green  Bay,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Miami  or  St.  Joseph  River, 
a  well-known  mission  and  trading-post  and  one  of  the 
routes  to  the  interior.  At  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Joseph  a 
small  wooden  fort,  eighty  by  forty  feet,  was  built  by  them 
to  serve  as  storehouse  and  base  of  operations  for  further 
inland  exploration ;  they  called  it  Fort  Miami. 

Some  years  before  the  Jesuits  had  set  up  a  mission  here, 
which  seems  to  have  been  abandoned  at  this  time ;  some 
years  later,  however,  a  flourishing  mission  of  Pottowatomies 
and  Miamis  existed  at  this  point,  as  we  shall  see.  For  the 
present  the  Recollects  set  up  a  bark  chapel,  and,  while  the 
expedition  tarried  here,  preached  and  ministered  to  whites 
and  natives.  They  named  the  chapel  St.  Anthony.  On 
December  3,  1679,  thirty-three  persons  started  up  the  St. 


THE   RECOLLECTS.  l8l 

Joseph,  crossed  a  portage  to  the  Kaskaskia,  and  glided 
down  the  Ilh'nois.  A  mile  or  more  below  Starved  Rock 
they  came  upon  an  Indian  village  of  four  hundred  and 
sixty  lodges,  found  the  village  empty,  the  natives  being 
absent  on  a  hunt,  landed  on  New-Year's  day,  1680,  to  hear 
mass,  and  then  moved  down  to  Lake  Peoria,  where  they 
found  another  village  of  eighty  cabins.  Here  La  Salle  was 
well  received,  though  he  soon  felt  among  the  natives  a 
secret  opposition,  which  he  attributes,  but  on  mere  sus- 
picions, to  the  Jesuits  laboring  in  the  country  immediately 
north.  Nothing  daunted,  however,  he  built,  on  a  site  not 
now  precisely  identifiable,  a  fort  that  was  named  by  him 
Creve-coeur;  not  because  he  felt  any  heartbreaking,  but 
in  honor  of  the  fortress  of  Creve-ccEur  in  Brabant,  which 
shortly  before  had  been  taken  and  demolished  by  the 
French  ;  it  was  a  compliment  to  his  Flemish  companions. 

In  the  meantime  Father  Membre  devoted  himself  to  the 
instruction  of  the  natives  in  the  neighborhood.  He  found 
the  work  difficult.  In  Le  Clercq's  '*  First  Establishment 
of  the  Faith  in  New  France  "  we  find  the  narrative  of  the 
adventures  of  La  Salle's  party  by  Zenobius  Membre. 
"  They  are  wandering,"  says  he  of  the  natives,  "  idle,  fear- 
ful, and  desolate,  almost  without  respect  for  their  chiefs, 
irritable,  and  thievish.  They  have  many  wives,  and  often 
take  several  sisters,  that  they  may  agree  the  better ;  and 
yet  they  are  so  jealous  that  they  cut  off  their  noses  on  the 
slightest  provocation.  They  are  lewd,  even  unnaturally 
so;  very  superstitious,  although  they  have  no  religious 
worship."  While  Membre  was  preaching  to  the  Indians 
and  Ribourde  acting  as  chaplain  to  the  French,  Hennepin 
was  dispatched  to  explore  the  upper  Mississippi.  We  shall 
have  more  to  sav  of  him  presently.  No  sooner  had  Hen- 
nepin set  out  than  La  Salle,  taking  with  him  fi\-e  com- 
panions and  leaving  fifteen  behind  at  Fort  Creve-coeur  in 


1 82  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

command  of  Tonty,  started  in  the  dead  of  winter  to  go  to 
Fort  Frontenac. 

When  he  came  back  the  following  August  he  found  the 
fort  dismantled,  and  there  was  no  trace  of  his  trusted  lieu- 
tenant. What  had  become  of  them?  After  La  Salle's 
departure  five  hundred  Iroquois  swooped  down  on  the 
Illinois  Indians.  It  was  in  vain  that  Tonty,  at  the  peril  of 
his  life,  tried  to  make  the  fierce  warriors  understand  that 
the  Illinois  were  the  children  of  Onontio,  allies  of  the 
French,  and  under  their  protection.  He  and  his  com- 
panions were  obliged  to  let  the  Iroquois  do  their  will,  and 
were  themselves  compelled  to  retreat  up  the  stream.  Dur- 
ing a  halt,  September  1 1,  1680,  Father  Ribourde  went  into 
an  adjacent  grove  to  say  his  breviary.  He  never  returned ; 
some  prowling  Indians  tomahawked  him ;  shortly  after  his 
breviary  came  into  the  hands  of  one  of  the  Jesuit  mission- 
aries. The  rest  of  the  party  made  their  way  to  Green 
Bay.  The  laymen  spent  the  winter  in  the  neighboring 
mission  of  the  Pottowatomies ;  Father  Membre  was  given 
most  cordial  hospitality  at  the  Jesuit  house  of  St.  Francis. 
La  Salle,  succeeding  in  finding  and  getting  together  his 
scattered  companions,  set  out  from  the  Illinois  River  to  go 
down  the  Mississippi.  On  April  9,  1682,  he  reached  the 
Gulf,  and  took  possession  of  the  mouth  of  the  river  and 
the  surrounding  country  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  Louis 
XIV.  Returning  to  the  Illinois,  he  built  a  fort  on  Starved 
Rock,  La  Salle  County,  111.,  and  named  it  Fort  St.  Louis. 
His  purpose  was  to  gather  around  the  place  all  the  West- 
ern tribes,  as  the  only  means  of  protecting  and  saving  them 
from  the  Iroquois.  In  a  few  months  there  was  a  popula- 
tion of  twenty  thousand  Indians  under  the  guns  of  the  fort. 

Father  Membre  returned  to  France.  When  La  Salle, 
who  also  had  returned  to  France  to  push  his  project 
of  a  French  .settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 


HENNEPIN  ON   THE    UPPER  MISSISSIPPI.  183 

sailed  in  July,  1684,  directly  for  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  with 
about  two  hundred  and  eighty  colonists,  Membre  once 
more  became  his  companion,  with  two  other  fathers  of  his 
order,  Anastasius  Douay  and. Maximus  le  Clercq,  and  three 
Sulpitians,  one  of  whom  was  the  brother  of  La  Salle,  Jean 
Cavelier.  We  pass  over  the  history  of  the  ill-fated  ex- 
pedition, the  tragic  death  of  La  Salle,  the  fortunes  of  the 
colony  he  left  behind  in  Matagorda  Bay.  Of  the  Recollects, 
Douay  made  his  way  up  the  Mississippi  into  Canada ;  Mem- 
bre and  Le  Clercq  are  believed  to  have  perished  at  the 
hands  of  the  savages  that  prowled  about  the  colony  of 
St.  Louis. 

It  is  plain  that  the  Recollects  did  not  do  much  mission- 
ary work,  yet  they  seemed  to  have  regarded  the  Mississippi 
Valfey  as  their  special  field  ;  through  their  influence  the 
holy  see  was  petitioned  to  establish  there  one  or  more 
vicariates  apostolic,  and  it  also  appears  that  the  Propaganda 
had  actually  established  them.  But  on  protest  of  the  Bishop 
of  Quebec,  St.  Vallier,  who  claimed  as  a  portion  of  his  dio- 
cese the  valley  of  the  great  river,  because  it  was  discov- 
ered by  Marquette,  a  priest  of  his  diocese,  and  Joliet,  a 
pupil  of  his  seminary,  the  establishment  of  the  vicariates 
was  revoked.  At  any  rate,  after  the  fateful  ending  of  the 
St.  Louis  colony,  the  Recollects  gave  up  all  claim,  and  the 
Jesuits  were  left  in  undisputed  possession  of  the  whole 
valley. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Father  Hennepin.  In  the  year  1674 
Louis  XIV.,  yielding  to  the  appeal  of  Frontenac,  governor 
of  Canada,  who  was  no  friend  of  the  Jesuits,  ordered  that 
five  Recollects  be  sent  to  Canada  to  reinforce  the  little 
community  of  that  order  already  established  there.  Hen- 
nepin was  one  of  the  number  chosen.  On  the  ship  that 
carried  him  he  had  as  fellow-passengers  Francois  de 
Laval,  recently  appointed  Bishop  of  Quebec,  and  La  Salle, 


1 84  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

with  whose  fortunes  he  was  to  be  so  closely  connected. 
In  the  fall  of  1676  he  was  sent  with  Father  Buisset,  a 
brother  Recollect,  to  Fort  Frontenac,  whence  he  made  a 
journey  to  the  Jesuit  missions  among  the  Mohawks,  and 
to  Fort  Orange,  the  Dutch  settlement  on  the  Hudson. 
When  La  Salle  went  across  Lake  Ontario  to  build  Fort 
Niagara  at  the  foot  of  the  river  of  that  name,  Hennepin 
was  a  member  of  the  party,  gazed  on  the  great  falls,  and 
was  the  first  to  describe  them.  In  1679  he  sailed  with  the 
explorer  on  the  "  Griffin  "  through  Lakes  Erie  and  Michi- 
gan to  the  river  St.  Joseph,  and  traveled  by  way  of  the 
Kankakee  to  the  Illinois  village  where  Fort  Creve-coeur 
was  built.  From  this  point  he  was  sent  by  La  Salle  with 
a  small  exploring-party  down  the  Illinois  and  thence  to  the 
upper  Mississippi.  It  was  on  the  last  day  of  February, 
1680,  that  he  embarked  with  La  Salle's  best  wishes  and 
Father  Ribourde's  parting  benediction  from  the  water's 
edge.  It  w^as  on  the  iith  or  12th  of  April  that  Henne- 
pin and  his  companions  were  captured  by  a  war-party 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  Sioux  Indians  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Black  River,  Wisconsin. 

Captors  and  captives  turned  their  prows  northward,  and 
after  about  twenty  days'  paddling  through  some  of  the 
grandest  scenery  on  the  continent,  landed  in  a  cove  a  few 
leagues  below  the  falls  of  the  Mississippi,  that  is  to  say,  three 
miles  below  the  present  city  of  St.  Paul.  Thence  striking 
inland,  they  reached  the  Sioux  villages  on  Mille  Lacs,  Min- 
nesota, about  the  5th  of  May.  On  the  whole  the  mis- 
.sionary  was  treated  kindly  ;  Minnesota  was  not  destined  to 
have  its  Jogues.  But  he  did  not  exercise  any  of  his  priestl)^ 
functions ;  his  vestments  and  altar  had  been  taken  from 
him.  Nor  did  he  succeed  in  making  any  converts.  "  I 
could  gain  nothing  over  them,"  lie  writes,  "in  the  way  of 
their  salvation,  by  reason  of  their  natural  stupidity."      On 


RETURN  OF  HRXXEPIX.  I  85 

one  occasion  he  baptized  a  sick  child  just  before  its  death. 
After  weeks  spent  among  those  Isanti  Sioux,  he  accom- 
panied a  hunting-party  to  the  Mississippi,  and  got  permis- 
sion from  his  captors  to  row  down  the  river  with  his  Frencli 
companions  in  the  hope  of  meeting  some  traders  who,  ac- 
cording to  a  previous  arrangement  with  La  Salle,  should 
be  about  this  time  at  the  mouth  of  the  Wisconsin, 

Floating  down  the  great  river,  they  soon  arrived  at  the 
falls,  which  Hennepin  named  St.  Anthony,  in  honor  of  the 
great  saint  of  his  order,  St.  Anthony  of  Padua.  He  de- 
scribed them  as  from  forty  to  fifty  feet  high,  with  an  island  of 
pyramidal  form  lying  nearly  midway  of  the  stream.  They 
kept  on  their  way  a  few  days  more;  but  having  run  out  of 
ammunition,  and  being  threatened  with  famine,  they  joined 
a  Sioux  band  that  they  met  at  the  confluence  of  the  Chip- 
pewa below  Lake  Pepin.  While  journeying  northward 
with  this  hunting-party,  they  met  another  band  journeying 
southward  ;  it  was  led  by  Duluth,  who  had  learned  of  the 
presence  of  some  Europeans  in  this  region  and  was  search- 
ing for  them.  The  Indians  do  not  seem  to  have  offered 
any  resistance  to  the  liberation  of  the  monk  and  his  com- 
panions. In  the  end  of  September  they  left  Minnesota, 
journeyed  by  way  of  the  Wi.sconsin  and  Fox  rivers  to 
Green  Bay,  and  thence  to  Mackinaw,  where  the  Franciscan 
enjoyed  during  the  winter  the  hospitality  of  the  Jesuit 
father  Pierson.  In  the  spring  he  departed  for  Quebec  via 
Lakes  Huron,  Erie,  Ontario,  and  the  St.  Lawrence;  by 
the  end  of  that  same  year  he  was  in  France.  There  he 
lived  until  1697,  when,  for  what  reason  we  know  not,  he 
was  ordered  by  the  Minister  of  War  to  leave  the  French 
soil ;  he  withdrew  into  his  native  Holland.  It  is  stated  l)y 
some  writers  that  before  his  death  he  went  on  a  })ilgrimage 
to  Rome,  was  at  the  convent  of  Ara  Coeli  in  1701,  and 
returned  thence  to  die  at  Utrecht  at  the  age  of  sixty-two. 


1 86  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 


On  his  return  to  France,  Hennepin  set  about  publishing 
the  notes  of  his  voyages.  Three  books  purporting  to  de- 
scribe his  explorations  have  appeared  over  Father  Henne- 
pin's name  :  the  first  in  Paris,  1683  ;  the  second  in  Utrecht, 
1697;  the  third  in  Utrecht,  1698. 

It  is  only  in  the  second  work  that  we  have  for  the  first 
time  the  narrative  of  his  descent  from  the  Illinois  River  to  the 
Gulf.  Why  did  he  not  mention  and  describe  this  trip  on  the 
lower  Mississippi  in  his  first  publication  ?  He  makes  answer 
in  the  preface  of  the  second  :  "  It  is  true  I  published  only  part 
in  1683  in  my  account  of  Louisiana,  printed  at  Paris  by  order 
of  the  French  king;  but  I  was  then  obliged  to  say  nothing 
<jf  the  course  of  the  river  Meschasipi  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Illinois  River  down  to  the  sea,  for  fear  of  disobliging 
M.  La  Salle,  with  whom  I  began  my  discovery.  This 
gentleman  wanted  to  have  the  glory  of  having  discovered 
the  course  of  that  river;  but  when  he  would  learn  that  I 
had  done  it  two  years  before  him,  he  would  never  forgive 
me,  though,  as  I  have  said,  I  was  so  modest  as  to  publish 
nothing  of  it."  In  the  preface  to  the  third  book  he  makes 
reply  to  those  who  doubted  the  possibility  of  his  having 
sailed  down  and  up  the  Mississippi  within  the  time  he 
allowed  himself  in  his  former  works. 

It  was  after  his  first  and  before  his  second  publication 
that  Father  Hennepin  had  been  excluded  from  France 
and  had  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Dutch-English 
court.  It  was  probably  to  favor  the  pretensions  of  William 
III.  in  setting  up  a  claim  to  Louisiana  that  he  was  in- 
duced to  write  his  second  work.  It  was  to  clear  away  the 
chronological  difficulties  created  by  the  second  that  he  put 
forth  the  third.  But  if  the  two  latter  works  are  Hennepin's 
we  are  afraid  he  has  prevaricated.  In  his  first  work  he 
distinctly  states  that  he  did  not  go  down  the  river:  "We 
had  some  designs  of  going  down  the  river  as  far  as  its 


HENNEPIN'S    VENACJTY.  187 

mouth,  but  the  tribes  that  took  us  prisoners  gave  us  no 
time  to  navigate  this  river  both  up  and  down."  The 
chronological  difficulties  are  of  his  own  making.  In  his 
first  book  he  states  that  he  turned  out  of  the  Illinois  River 
into  the  Mississippi  northward  on  the  12th  of  March,  and 
that  he  was  captured  by  the  Sioux  fi\'e  hundred  miles  higher 
up  on  the  i  ith  of  April.  This  gives  him  only  a  month  to 
run  down  to  the  Gulf  and  back  again  to  the  point  of  his 
capture.  The  distance  gone  over  would  be  3260  miles,  an 
evident  impossibility  with  his  means  of  traveling.  In  his 
third  book,  when  he  undertakes  to  explain  this  chron- 
ological difficulty,  he  gets  himself  into  confusion  worse 
confounded. 

Gilmary  Shea,  in  a  notice  on  Father  Hennepin  annexed 
to  a  translation  of  "  Description  de  la  Louisiane  "  (New 
York,  1880),  exculpates  the  friar  by  the  statement  that  he 
was  not  responsible  for  all  the  fictions  published  in  the 
second  and  third  works  that  go  under  his  name.  The 
hand  of  an  anonymous  and  treacherous  editor  can  be  seen 
in  various  parts  of  the  book,  and  alterations  were  made  in 
it  after  its  first  printing,  with  a  view  to  make  the  work 
more  salable.  This  puts  another  view  on  the  question, 
and  allows  us  to  save  the  good  name  of  the  hero  of  the 
upper  Mississippi.  The  only  authentic  book  of  Father 
Hennepin,  according  to  Shea's  theory,  is  the  first,  and  it  is 
the  only  one  for  which  he  ought  to  be  held  responsible. 

To  come  back  to  the  missions  and  their  status  about  the 
year  1690.  Of  the  old  missions  noticed  heretofore,  Mack- 
inaw was  in  charge  of  Fathers  Enjalran  and  De  Carheil, 
Green  Bay  in  charge  of  Father  Nouvel,  Sault  Ste.  Marie  in 
charge  of  Fathers  Albanel  and  Bailloquet.  New  missions 
had  sprung  up,  one  on  the  St.  Joseph  River,  in  charge  of 
Father  Aveneau,  and  one  on  the  St.  Croix  River,  Wiscon- 
sin, in  charge  of  Father  Marest.     The  foundation  of  the 


I  .S8  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

mission  of  Detroit  dates  from  1701.  At  an  earlier  time 
some  feeble  efforts  had  been  made  to  secure  the  possession 
of  this  important  pass;  the  Jesuits  in  their  journeyings  to 
the  West  frequently  stopped  here  and  baptized  what  chil- 
dren they  found  in  danger  of  death.  A  glance  at  the  map 
of  North  America  will  convince  any  one  that  Quebec, 
Detroit,  and  New  Orleans  were  the  three  big  rings  of  the 
French  chain  of  posts  that  held  the  continent,  command- 
ing the  great  inland  waterways,  the  St.  Lawrence,  the 
lakes,  the  Mississippi.  La  Motte  Cadillac  was  appointed 
(1701)  commander  at  this  new  and  important  post;  he 
brought  out  from  Canada  soldiers  and  settlers,  and  also  a 
Recollect,  Father  Delhalle,  to  serve  as  chaplain  to  the  post 
and  as  pastor  to  the  settlers.  A  Jesuit,  Du  Guesles,  was 
engaged  to  serve  as  missionary  to  the  Indians.  Fort 
Pontchartrain  and  a  chapel  in  honor  of  St.  Ann  were 
built.  The  Jesuit  missionary,  having  learned  on  his  way 
to  Detroit  the  full  details  of  Cadillac's  propo.sed  .scheme, 
renounced  his  engagement  and  returned  to  Quebec. 

Cadillac's  plan  was  to  gather  around  this  new  post  all 
the  Western  Indian  tribes  that  had  no  fixed  habitation — 
Hurons,  Ottawas,  Miamis.  Such  an  arrangement  would 
render  completely  desert  the  missions  of  the  Sault,  Mack- 
inaw, St.  Joseph,  and  would  greatly  weaken  that  of 
Green  Bay.  His  intention  was  to  secure  their  trade  and 
prevent  it  from  going  northward  to  the  English  in  the 
Hudson  Bay  country.  There  was  a  constant  tendency  on 
the  part  of  the  Western  Indians  to  take  their  peltries  to  the 
English  marts  on  the  Hudson  Bay  in  the  north  or  the 
Hudson  River  in  the  east.  For  this  tendency  there  were 
two  reasons :  they  received  in  return  goods  at  a  cheaper 
rate,  and  they  got  branny  more  freely;  for  though  the 
French  laws  on  this  point  were  not  always  executed,  yet 
they  were  restraints,  and  the  missionaries  were  ever  watchful, 


CONTENDING  POLICIES.  189 

and  made  it  uncomfortable  for  the  violators ;  whereas  the 
English  colonies  left  that  trade  completely  free.  Brandy 
was  the  irresistible  magnet  that  attracted  peltries. 

But  the  Canadian  government  had  a  still  nobler  motive 
in  concentrating  the  scattered  tribes  of  the  lakes  around  a 
few  central  posts :  it  was  to  protect  them  more  easily  from 
the  Iroquois  of  the  East,  the  Sioux  of  the  West,  and  from 
the  incessant  quarrels  and  wars  that  arose  out  of  their 
mutual  jealousies.  Cadillac  meant  to  form  these  tribes 
into  a  military  organization,  impose  on  them  the  French 
language,  and  encourage  marriage  between  the  whites  and 
the  natives.  The  policy  of  the  Jesuits  was  the  reverse : 
they  had  always  held  that  the  less  contact  there  was  be- 
tween the  Indians  and  the  whites  the  better  for  the  Chris- 
tianization  and  civilization  of  the  former.  It  was  for  this 
reason  they  had  opposed  the  project  of  La  Salle  to  make 
Fort  St.  Louis,  on  the  Starved  Rock,  111.,  the  center  of  a 
large  Indian  cantonment.  Their  enemies  attributed  their 
policy  to  another  motive — the  wish  to  keep  the  trade  of 
the  mission  Indians  in  their  own  hands.  Such  is  the  ac- 
cusation brought  against  them  by  Frontenac,  La  Salle, 
Cadillac,  and  certain  coiirettrs  de  bois ;  but  the  accusation 
is  not  borne  out  by  solid  proof.  The  immediate  result  of 
Cadillac's  settlement  at  Detroit  was  to  deplete  the  missions 
of  Mackinaw  and  St.  Joseph.  Only  twenty-five  Indians 
remained  at  the  former  station  with  Father  De  Carheil ;  St. 
Joseph  was  entirely  abandoned.  This  desertion  induced 
Fathers  Carheil,  Marest,  and  Enjalran  to  return  to  Quebec,  a 
proceeding  that  was  severely  censured  by  the  French  gov- 
ernment. After  a  few  years  both  missions  were  resumed 
by  Marest  and  Aveneau.  Green  Bay  alone  retained  a 
sufficient  number  of  Indians,  and  there  Nouvel,  after  forty 
years  of  mission  work,  died  in  1 702,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Father  Chardou, 


1 90  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap,  xii. 

The  growth  of  Detroit  was  slow  and  difficult.  In  1703 
a  conflagration  destroyed  the  little  town  and  the  earliest 
parish  registers.  The  following  year  the  chapel  was  re- 
built and  a  new  register  opened ;  but  only  three  pages  of 
it  are  preserved.  An  uprising  of  the  surrounding  Indians, 
living  in  three  large  villages,  took  place  in  1 706,  and 
Father  Delhalle  was  shot  down  while  trying  to  prevent  the 
effusion  of  blood.  He  was  succeeded  by  another  Recollect, 
Dominic  de  la  Marche,  who  remained  in  Detroit  until 
May  I,  1708.  In  1707  Detroit  was  attacked  by  a  com- 
bined army  of  Foxes,  Kickapoos,  and  Mascoutins,  egged 
on,  it  appears,  by  the  English ;  but  after  a  series  of  des- 
perate engagements  they  were  nearly  exterminated  by  the 
French  and  their  Indian  allies.  The  Recollects  continued 
to  serve  the  post  of  Detroit,  while  the  Jesuits  were  en- 
gaged in  their  former  missions,  though  Green  Bay  was 
entirely  deserted  about  the  year  1 729,  and  the  Miamis 
moved  eastward  from  St.  Joseph  to  the  Maumee  in  1721. 

Charlevoix  made  a  journey  in  1721  from  Quebec  to 
New  Orleans.  He  gives  the  result  of  his  observations  on 
the  missions  of  the  West  in  "Journal  d'un  voyage,"  vol. 
iii.  of  his  "  Histoire  de  la  Nouvelle  France"  (Paris,  1744). 
At  Detroit  there  were  three  villages  of  Indian.s — one  of 
Hurons  from  Mackinaw,  one  of  Pottowatomies,  and  one 
of  Ottawas.  There  were  no  Christians  among  the  Ottawas, 
few  among  the  Pottowatomies  ;  all  the  Hurons  were  Chris- 
tian, but  unfortunately  no  missionary  was  then  residing 
among  these  Indians.  At  Mackinaw  there  were  the  fort  and 
the  house  of  the  missionaries.  They  had  little  to  do,  because 
few  Indians  had  remained  ;  but  their  presence  was  deemed 
necessary  by  the  government.  At  Green  Bay  there  was 
a  fort  and  a  missionar}-.  At  St.  Joseph  were  two  villages 
of  Miamis  and  Pottowatomies,  mostly  Christian  ;  but  they 
had  been  so  long  without  a  missionary  "  that  the  one  who 


MISSION  AT  LAKE   PEPIN.  191 

is  there  now  will  have  much  to  do  to  bring  them  back  to 
the  practice  of  religion."  Thence  he  went  by  the  Kankakee 
portage  to  the  Illinois.  Besides  these  stations  named  by 
Charlevoix  there  was  one  other  of  some  importance  in  the 
Northwest. 

In  May,  1727,  a  fort,  Beatiharnois,  was  established  by 
Laperriere  on  the  western  bank  of  Lake  Pepin,  six  miles 
above  Lake  City,  Minn.  This,  however,  was  not  the  first 
attempt  at  a  French  settlement  on  the  lake ;  Le  Sueur,  it 
appears,  had  built  a  fort  there  about  the  year  1696,  but  it 
was  long  since  abandoned.  Appropriations  were  made  by 
the  government  for  the  support  of  two  Jesuits  at  this  new 
post.  Father  Louis  Guignas  accompanied  the  expedition 
that  founded  the  fort ;  he  called  this  mission  St.  Michael 
the  Archangel.  While  attempting  to  reach  the  Illinois 
country  in  1728  he  was  captured  by  a  band  of  Kickapoos 
and  Mascoutins,  and  remained  a  prisoner  in  their  hands  for 
a  year.  After  his  liberation  he  returned  to  his  Sioux  mis- 
sion on  Lake  Pepin,  where  he  was  laboring  in  1736.  A 
few  years  afterward  the  place  was  abandoned,  and  later 
attempts  to  reestablish  the  post  were  failures.  About  the 
year  i  765  there  were  only  two  Jesuits  in  the  Northwest, 
Le  Franc  and  Peter  du  Launay,  in  Mackinaw.  The  sup- 
pression of  the  Jesuits  by  the  French  government  about 
this  time,  and  the  surrender  of  New  France  to  England, 
put  an  end  to  the  arduous  but  glorious  work  which  the 
society  had  carried  on  in  the  Northwest  for  a  period  of  one 
hundred  years. 

The  date  we  have  now  reached  brings  us  to  the  period 
when  England  became  mistress  of  the  French  dominions 
in  North  America,  when  the  Catholic  missions  of  the  ter- 
ritory that  is  now  the  United  States  came  within  the  juris- 
diction of  a  prefect  apostolic  and  shortly  after  of  the 
Bishop  of  Baltimore.     This  was  the  period  of  the  organ- 


192  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xii. 

ized  hierarchy,  the  second  part  of  this  work.  By  that 
time  all  the  tribes  heretofore  named — that  is  to  say,  all  the 
North  American  Indians — were  more  or  less  extensively 
converted,  all  had  the  gospel  preached  to  them ;  all,  though 
much  diminished  in  population,  still  exist,  except  the 
Mascoutins.  What  philological  works  were  composed  by 
the  Jesuits  in  the  dialects  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  have 
perished.  It  was  later  missionaries  who  reduced  the 
Chippeway  and  Sioux  to  grammatical  form,  and  left  us 
printed  works  in  these  languages. 

To-day  the  two  dioceses  of  South  and  North  Dakota 
have  4740  Catholic  Indians,  the  diocese  of  Grand  Rapids 
has  500,  the  diocese  of  Green  Bay  1400,  the  diocese  of 
La  Crosse  1650,  the  diocese  of  Marquette  2500,  the  diocese 
of  Duluth  and  the  diocese  of  St.  Cloud  probably  2000.  In 
the  Indian  Territory  there  are  lowas,  Kickapoos,  Miamis, 
Ottawas,  Osages,  Ottoes,  Missouris,  Peorias,  Wyandots, 
Pottowatomies,  Sacs,  and  Foxes,  whose  ancestors,  when 
they  dwelt  on  the  lakes  and  the  Great  River,  saw  and 
heard  the  French  Black  Robes.  The  Catholic  population 
of  the  Indian  Territory  is  given  as  5000.  The  present 
Catholic  population  of  the  tribes  that  once  inhabited  the 
region  described  in  the  opening  of  this  section  as  the 
"  Ottawa  missions  "  is  between  eighteen  and  twenty  thou- 
sand. I  doubt  whether  the  whole  population  of  these  tribes 
was  much  over  forty  thousand  in  the  days  of  the  French 
domination. 

Such  is  the  result  in  numbers,  but  the  result  in  influence 
was  greater :  the  wild  fierceness  of  the  savage  was  softened  ; 
a  marvelous  respect  and  love  for  the  priest  and  the  church 
penetrated  so  deep  into  his  heart  that  time  and  bigotry 
have  not  availed  to  eradicate  them.  It  is  a  wonder  that 
the  success  was  so  great*,  when  one  reckons  up  the  causes 
that  should   have  produced  failure:  the  recklessness  and 


CAUSES   OF  FAILURE. 


193 


immoralities  of  soldiers,  traders,  and  bush-rangers;  French 
brandy  and  English  rum ;  the  political  and  religious  quarrels 
of  France  and  England  ;  the  policy  of  concentration  of  the 
tribes  adopted  in  the  end  by  Canada;  the  contrary  policy 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  their  unwillingness  to  work  under  the 
plan  of  the  government;  polygamy;  the  superstitions  and 
magic  of  the  medicine-man ;  the  mutual  quarrels  and  the 
constant  wanderings  of  tlie  tribes.  In  spite  of  all  these 
obstacles  a  great  and  a  lasting  work  was  done. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE   ILLINOIS    MISSIONS. 

Under  the  name  "Illinois"  I  comprise  the  present 
States  of  Illinois  and  Indiana  down  to  the  confluence  of 
the  Ohio  with  the  Mississippi.  Some  features  distinguish 
this  mission  field  from  the  northern  field  we  have  just 
studied :  it  contained  more  and  larger  French  settlements, 
Detroit  being  the  only  French  settlement  in  the  North. 
Here,  by  the  side  of  the  Jesuits,  labored  also  diocesan 
priests  of  Quebec,  and  in  fact  the  latter  had  more  to  do 
with  the  growth  and  preservation  of  the  church  in  this 
section  than  the  former.  At  first  the  Illinois  country  de- 
pended for  its  civil  administration  on  Quebec;  later  on  it 
was  annexed  to  New  Orleans  ;  but  for  its  ecclesiastical  ad- 
ministration it  held  from  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  so  long  as 
it  remained  under  French  domination. 

This  section  was  occupied  by  two  Algonquin  tribes,  the 
Illinois  and  the  Miamis.  Their  country  lay  between  the 
Wabash,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi ;  their  population 
did  not  exceed  eighteen  thousand  souls.  The  principal 
clans  of  the  Illinois  were  the  Peoria,  Cahokia,  Tamaroa, 
Kaskaskia,  and  Moingwena,  whose  name,  curiously  trans- 
formed, passed  to  a  river  in  Iowa,  the  Des  Moines,  on 
which  they  dwelt  for  some  time.  The  Miamis  originally 
dwelt  at  Detroit,  migrated  thence  to  the  mouth  of -the 
Wabash,  and  thence  again  to  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
Michigan,  whence  they  were  driven,  in  the  beginning  of 

194 


I 


ALLOUEZ  IN  ILLIXOI^.  195 

the  eighteenth  century,  by  a  Chippeway  clan,  the  Pottowat- 
omies.  The  principal  clans  of  the  Miamis  were  the  Wea, 
Piankeshaw,  Pepikokia,  and  Kilatak.  The  Illinois  and  the 
Miamis,  though  distinct  races  and  often  at  variance,  easily 
intermingled,  being  of  the  same  nation  and  language. 

The  Illinois  first  came  in  contact  with  Christianity  on 
a  visit  to  Chegoimegon  Bay,  Lake  Superior,  in  the  time  of 
Allouez  (1667)  and  of  his  successor,  Marquette.  Later 
Allouez  met  them  again  near  Green  Bay  in  a  village  of  the 
Mascoutins.  We  have  seen  how  Marquette,  during  his 
descent  down  the  Mississippi,  \isited  an  Illinois  village,  and 
again  on  his  return,  and  how  shortly  before  his  death  he  set 
up  the  mission  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  at  Kaskaskia, 
on  the  Illinois  River,  where  two  thousand  Indians  lived. 
Allouez,  who  preceded  him  on  Lake  Superior,  succeeded 
him  in  this  mission.  Shea,  in  "  Discovery  and  Exploration 
of  the  Mississippi,"  gives  the  father's  narrative  of  his  arrival 
and  work  in  this  mission  :  "  In  spite  of  all  our  efforts  to  has- 
ten on,  it  was  the  27th  of  April,  1677,  before  I  could  reach 
Kachkachkia,  a  large  Illinois  town.  I  immediately  entered 
the  cabin  where  Father  Marquette  had  lodged,  and  the 
sachems  with  all  the  people  being  assembled,  I  told  them 
the  object  of  my  coming  among  them.  They  listened  very 
attentively  and  thanked  me  for  the  trouble  I  took  for  their 
salvation.  I  found  the  village  very  much  increased.  It 
was  before  composed  of  only  one  nation.  There  are  now 
eight.  They  are  lodged  in  three  hundred  and  fifty-one 
cabins."  To  compute  the  population  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  there  were  from  three  to  five  fires  or  families  to 
a  cabin ;  there  must  have  been  in  the  village  at  this  time 
between  six  and  eight  thousand  souls.  The  father  further 
states  that  on  the  3d  of  May  he  erected  in  the  village  a 
cross  twenty-five  feet  high  in  the  presence  of  a  great 
number  of  the  Illinois  of  all  the  tribes.     The  prospects 


196  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xiii. 

were  cheering  and  the  hopes  of  the  missionary  were  high, 
when  he  was  warned  of  the  approach  of  La  Salle  with  four 
Recollects  (1679).  Knowing  the  hostility  of  the  great 
explorer  to  his  order,  and  fearing  to  clash  with  the  new- 
comers, he  withdrew.  We  have  already  seen  how  the 
Recollects  attempted  to  instruct  the  Illinois  while  the  ex- 
peditionary party  dwelt  on  Lake  Peoria,  how  the  Iroquois 
dispersed  the  village,  how  Father  Ribourde  was  murdered, 
and  how  the  missions  were  practically  abandoned  by  the 
Recollects  after  the  journey  of  La  Salle  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi. 

In  1683  Tonty,  La  Salle's  lieutenant,  rebuilt  Fort  St. 
Louis  on  the  Starved  Rock ;  and,  as  he  did  not  share  La 
Salle's  enmity  to  the  Jesuits,  he  recalled  Allouez,  who  re- 
mained at  work  among  the  numerous  clans  concentrated  at 
that  spot  until  1687.  Fort  St.  Louis  continued  to  be  the 
seat  of  French  power  in  Illinois  down  to  the  year  1702. 
The  dispersion  of  the  surrounding  tribes  was  one  reason  of 
its  decline ;  the  advantages  of  the  portage  of  the  Fox  and 
Wisconsin  rivers  over  that  of  the  Chicago  River  was  an- 
other. When  Charlevoix  passed  by  the  Rock  in  1721  he 
saw  only  the  remains  of  its  palisade  and  rude  buildings. 
After  the  departure  of  Allouez,  Fathers  Douay  and 
Gravier  paid  flying  visits  to  the  mission  of  Kaskaskia. 
In  1692  Father  Rale  came  to  the  mission.  After  laboring 
here  a  year  or  more  he  was  sent  back  to  his  original  charge, 
the  Abenakis  of  Maine.  We  have  a  most  interesting  de- 
scription by  himself  of  his  life  among  the  Illinois,  in  vol. 
vi.  of  "  Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses "  (Paris,  1781). 
He  found  here  about  two  thousand  families.  However, 
the  faith  had  made  but  little  progress.  The  Indians  did 
not  object  to  the  instructions  of  the  missionaries,  the  ser- 
vices were  well  attended,  they  freely  allowed  their  children 
to  be  baptized  (a  privilege  the  missionary  availed  himself 


KASKASKTA.  1 97 

of,  especially  in  cases  of  imminent  death) ;  but  they  could 
not  be  brought  to  obey  the  stern  requirements  of  Chris- 
tian marriage ;  polygamy  stood  in  the  way  of  practical 
Christianity. 

After  the  departure  of  Rale,  Father  Gravier  took  charge. 
He  compiled  the  grammar  of  the  language,  but  no  trace  of 
the  work  is  to  be  found  to-day.  A  journal  covering  about 
one  year  of  his  missionary  life  here  is  still  extant.  During 
that  time  he  baptized  two  hundred  and  six,  mostly  dying 
infants.  Gravier  was  succeeded  in  the  Illinois  country  by 
Fathers  Julian  Binneteau  and  Francis  Pinet.  Bancroft 
records  that  Binneteau,  having  followed  his  Indians  in  one 
of  their  hunts,  sickened,  died,  and  left  his  bones  to  bleach 
on  the  wilderness  range  of  the  buffalo.  Pinet  went  to 
labor  among  the  Tamaroas,  and  has  the  credit  of  establish- 
ing the  mission  of  Cahokia  about  the  year  1 700.  The  place 
is  now  a  struggling,  decayed  town,  opposite  Carondelet, 
on  the  Mississippi.  His  success  was  unusual,  and  he  soon 
found  his  chapel  too  small  for  the  crowds  that  came  to 
mass.      He  seems  to  have  died  there  in  i  704. 

About  the  year  i  700  the  original  Kaskaskia,  on  the  Illinois 
River,  where  Marquette  had  established  the  mission  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  was  transferred,  by  the  advice  and 
under  the  guidance  of  Father  Marest,  to  the  site  that  now 
goes  by  the  name  of  Kaskaskia,  on  the  banks  of  the  Kas- 
kaskia or  Okaw  River,  six  miles  above  its  confluence  with 
the  Mississippi  and  two  miles  east  of  the  latter  river.  The 
new  settlement  was  called  "  Le  Village  de  ITmmaculee 
Conception  des  Cascaquias."  The  motive  of  this  move 
was  double  :  to  get  farther  away  from  the  ever-threatening 
Iroquois,  and  to  get  into  closer  communication  with  the 
French  colony  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  which  had 
become  the  supply  and  trading-center  for  the  missions  of 
Illinois.     It  was  almost  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  that 


198  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xm. 

Canadians  began  to  settle  in  this  Kaskaskia.  For  the  first 
years  of  its  existence  it  was  only  an  Indian  mission  station, 
and  its  history  is  to  be  traced  in  the  parish  records,  reg- 
isters of  baptisms,  marriages,  and  burials,  which  continue 
with  varying  regularity  down  to  the  middle  of  the  present 
century.  Father  Marest  was  master  of  the  Kaskaskia 
language,  in  which  he  compiled  a  catechism.  He  died,  it 
is  said,  near  Peoria,  September  17,  1715- 

In  1707  Father  John  Mermet  had  joined  him  in  Kas- 
kaskia. Bancroft  (vol.  iii.)  thus  describes  the  labors  of 
this  missionary  :  "  The  gentle  virtues  and  fervid  eloquence 
of  Mermet  made  him  the  soul  of  the  mission  of  Kaskaskia. 
At  early  dawn  his  pupils  came  to  church,  dressed  neatly 
and  modestly,  each  in  a  deerskin,  or  a  robe  sewn  together 
from  several  skins.  After  receiving  lessons  they  chanted 
canticles ;  mass  was  then  said  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
Christians,  the  women  on  one  side,  the  men  on  the  other. 
From  prayer  and  instructions  the  missionaries  proceeded 
to  visit  the  sick  and  administer  medicine,  and  their  skill  as 
physicians  did  more  than  all  the  rest  to  win  confidence. 
In  the  afternoon  the  catechism  was  taught  in  the  presence 
of  the  young  and  old,  when  every  one,  without  distinction 
of  rank  or  age,  answered  the  questions  of  the  missionary. 
At  evening  all  would  assemble  in  the  chapel  for  instruc- 
tion, for  prayer,  and  to  chant  the  hymns  of  the  church. 
On  Sundays  and  festivals,  even  after  vespers,  a  homily  was 
pronounced ;  at  the  close  of  the  day  parties  would  meet  in 
houses  to  recite  the  chaplet  in  alternate  choirs,  and  sing 
psalms  until  late  at  night.  Saturdays  and  Sundays  were 
the  days  appointed  for  confession  and  communion,  and 
every  convert  confessed  once  a  fortnight." 

One  more  description,  that  of  a  missionary  trip,  is 
extracted  from  a  letter  of  Father  Mermet  in  the  "  Lettres 
Edifiantes  " :   "I  departed,  having  nothing  about  me  but 


PATI/EK  MERMET.  1  99 

my  crucifix  and  breviary,  and  being  accompanied  by  only 
two  savages,  who  might  abandon  me  from  levity,  or  might 
fly  through  fear  of  enemies.  The  terror  of  these  vast, 
iminhabited  regions,  in  which  for  twelve  days  not  a  single 
soul  was  seen,  almost  took  my  courage  away.  This  was  a 
journey  in  which  there  was  no  village,  no  bridge,  no  ferry- 
boat, no  house,  no  beaten  path,  and  over  boundless  prairies 
intersected  by  rivulets  and  rivers,  through  forests  and 
thickets  filled  with  briers  and  thorns,  through  marshes  in 
which  we  sometimes  plunged  to  the  girdle.  At  night  re- 
pose was  sought  on  the  grass  or  leaves,  exposed  to  the 
winds  and  rains,  happy  if  by  the  side  of  some  rivulet, 
whose  waters  might  quench  our  thirst.  Meals  were  pre- 
pared from  such  game  as  might  be  killed  on  the  way,  or 
by  roasting  some  ears  of  corn."  Thus  labored  Father 
Mermet  until  his  death,  in  17 18. 

There  was  in  the  Illinois  country  another  post,  which 
had,  however,  a  short-existence.  It  was  established  toward 
the  end  of  1702  by  Sieur  Juchereau  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Wabash,  probably  on  the  site  of  the  more  modern  Fort 
Massac.  The  Mascoutins  and  the  Kickapoos  gathered 
about  this  post  for  the  purpose  of  barter.  Father  Mermet 
visited  them  from  Kaskaskia,  but  had  no  success  in  con- 
verting them.  In  1 705  the  post  was  abandoned ;  the 
French  had  to  fly  for  their  lives  on  account  of  the  hostility 
of  the  Indians.  More  important  and  more  lasting  was  the 
establishment  (17 19)  on  the  Wabash  of  a  post  which  still 
bears  the  name  of  its  founder,  Vincennes.  This  settlement 
was  about  one  hundred  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
and  for  many  years  was  a  mere  halting-place  for  the  mis- 
sionaries and  fur-traders  who  traveled  southward  by  way 
of  the  Maumee  and  the  Wabash.  The  priests  of  Kaskaskia 
and  Cahokia  visited  it  occasionally,  until  it  assumed  great 
importance  as  a  Canadian  settlement  after  the  year  1725. 


200  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.,  [Chap.  xiit. 

There  was  a  mission  at  Peoria  in  charge  of  Father  De  Ville 
in  1 712,  and  also  at  St.  Joseph,  at  the  head  of  Lake  Michi- 
gan— where  Hved  Miamis  and  Pottowatomies — in  charge 
of  Father  Chardon  in  171 1. 

Such,  then,  were  the  stations  in  the  IlHnois  country  when 
Charlevoix,  journeying  from  Quebec  to  New  Orleans,  visited 
them  in  1721.  He  has  left  his  impressions  in  a  journal  in- 
cluded in  vol.  ii.  of  "  Histoire  de  la  Nouvelle  France."  The 
Indians  at  St.  Joseph  were  almost  all  Christians,  but  had 
fallen  into  great  disorders  because  for  a  long  time  they  had 
no  resident  missionary.  He  found  the  Peorias  also  without 
a  missionary  and  almost  entirely  pagan ;  yet  even  here  he 
found  traces  of  Christianity  and  hopes  of  a  brighter  future. 
At  Cahokia  was  a  large  town  composed  of  two  tribes,  and 
here  were  two  secular  missionaries  who  had  been  pupils  of 
Charlevoix  at  Quebec.  At  Kaskaskia  he  found  that  "  this 
flourishing  mission  has  been  divided  into  two  villages.  The 
most  populous  is  on  the  river;  two  Jesuits,  Le  Boulanger 
and  De  Kereben,  have  charge.  Half  a  league  below  is 
Fort  Chartres,  in  command  of  De  Bois-Briant.  The  in- 
tervening space  is  being  rapidly  settled  by  French.  Four 
leagues  lower  down  and  one  league  from  the  river  is  a 
large  village  of  French ;  their  parish  priest  is  a  Jesuit,  De 
Beaubois.  Two  leagues  from  this  farther  inland  is  a  second 
Indian  village,  in  charge  of  the  Jesuit  Father  Guymonneau." 
Le  Boulanger  was  the  author  of  a  catechism  and  instructions 
in  the  Illinois  language,  the  manuscript  of  which*  is,  says 
Shea,  in  the  Carter-Brown  Library  at  Providence,  R.  I. 

We  see  from  Charlevoix's  account  that  secular  priests 
were  at  work  in  this  section  as  early  as  the  year  1721. 
The  first  Bishop  of  Quebec,  Laval,  had  been  a  member  of 
the  Seminary  of  the  Foreign  Missions  in  Paris,  and  had 
established  a  branch  seminary  in  Quebec.  He  destined  the 
subjects  of  this  seminary  for  the  missions  of  the  Mississippi 


FRENCH  SETTLEMENTS.  201 

Valley.  Thus  it  comes  that  Charlevoix  meets  them  on  his 
journey.  Time  was  when  the  Recollects  threatened  to 
take  this  field  from  the  Jesuits,  the  veterans  of  the  Western 
missions ;  finally  the  intruders  had  come.  Dissatisfaction 
and  protests  were  unavailing,  and  the  bishop  went  so  far 
in  his  new  policy  as  to  invest  one  of  the  seminary  priests 
with  powers  as  vicar-general  over  all  the  missions  of  the 
Illinois.  The  move  proved  to  be  providential ;  it  provided 
missionaries  to  preserve  the  Christianity  created  by  the 
Jesuits  after  the  society  had  been  suppressed  by  France 
and  the  Pope. 

The  palmy  period  of  the  Illinois  missions  was  from  1725 
to  1750.  The  center  of  communication  and  supply  was  no 
longer  Quebec,  but  New  Orleans,  though  the  ecclesiastical 
government  and  jurisdiction  continued  on  the  banks  of  the 
St.  Lawrence.  As  early  as  1720  the  civil  administration  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley  south  of  Lake  Michigan  passed  from 
Quebec  to  New  Orleans.  Communication  with  the  mother 
country  by  way  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Atlantic  was  far 
easier  and  quicker  than  by  way  of  the  Atlantic,  the  St. 
Lawrence,  the  lakes,  and  the  portages  into  the  affluents 
of  the  Mississippi. 

The  great  majority  of  the  Illinois  were  now  Christian, 
excepting  the  Peorias.  They  were  settled  down,  cultivated 
the  land,  and  absented  themselves  only  in  the  hunting- 
season.  The  French  intermarried  with  them  freely,  and 
to-dav  the  blood  of  Illinois  chiefs  flows  in  the  veins  of  some 
of  the  best  French  families  of  Illinois  and  Missouri.  Fort 
Chartres  was  built  in  i  720  by  Pierre  Duque  de  Bois-Briant, 
the  king's  lieutenant  for  Louisiana.  This  was  a  wooden 
building,  supplanted  later  by  that  expensive  stone  structure 
that  figures  so  prominently  in  the  later  French  history  of 
Illinois,  and  to-day  it  is  but  a  shapeless  ruin.  Here  also 
was  built  the  Church  of  St.  Ann  of  Fort  Chartres.    Under 


202  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xiit. 

the  jurisdiction  of  the  priest  of  St.  Ann,  chapels  were 
erected  subsequently  at  Prairie  du  Rocherand  St.  Philippe's. 
Part  of  the  ancient  records  of  the  parish  of  St.  Ann  have 
been  preserved  to  this  day. 

The  building  of  Fort  Chartres  gave  an  impetus  to  the  set- 
tlements of  Illinois,  and  the  Canadian  population  received 
considerable  accessions.  The  post  at  Vincennes  became  the 
residence  of  a  missionary,  Father  Meurin,  in  i  749 ;  he  at- 
tended to  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  neighboring  Piankeshaw 
Indians  and  of  the  French  settlers.  The  latter  greatly  in- 
creased between  the  years  1754  and  1756  by  immigrants 
from  Detroit,  Kaskaskia,  and  New  Orleans.  Some  fourteen 
French  families  were  settled  at  Ouiatanon,  a  trading-post 
not  far  below  the  present  site  of  Lafayette,  O.  ;  and  also 
a  few  at  Twightee  village,  near  the  site  of  Fort  Wayne. 
These  waifs  of  civilization,  far  removed  from  the  great 
centers,  were  in  a  state  of  almost  unlimited  ease  and  free- 
dom, and  intermarried  with  the  dusky  maidens  about  them. 

But  as  the  white  settlements  increased  and  prospered 
the  Indians  decreased.  Father  Vivier,  a  Jesuit  missionary, 
states  in  a  letter  of  June  8,  1750,  that  at  Kaskaskia  there 
were  three  villages  of  Illinois  Indians,  with  not  more  than 
eight  hundred  souls;  whereas  the  French  were  eleven  hun- 
dred, with  three  hundred  black  slaves.  The  whole  Illinois 
tribe  at  this  time  could  not  count  more  than  eight  thousand 
souls.  Much  smaller  was  the  Indian  population  at  Vin- 
cennes— scarcely  three  hundred.  Vincennes  and  the  Indian 
mission  of  Kaskaskia  were  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits  ; 
the  French  settlements  at  Cahokia  and  Kaskaskia  and  Fort 
Chartres  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Seminary  priests.  The 
St.  Joseph  mission  was  well-nigh  abandoned,  and  still  re- 
mained under  the  civil  administration  of  Quebec.  Twelve 
years  later  Choiseul,  minister  of  France,  suppressed  the 
Society  of  Jesus  and  surrendered  all  the  possessions  of 


FRANCE   LOSES  ILLINOIS.  20,^ 

France  in  the  New  World.  The  Jesuits  of  Louisiana,  for 
the  most  part,  became  secularized  under  the  immediate 
jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  and  retained  their 
missions. 

It  was  to  Spain  that  France  surrendered  Louisiana — that 
is  to  say,  all  the  region  west  of  the  Mississippi  and  a  small 
territory  surrounding  New  Orleans  on  the  eastern  bank. 
All  else  east  of  the  river  had  become  English  territory. 
Unwilling  to  remain  under  the  British  flag,  the  commandant 
of  Fort  Chartres,  St.  Ange,  moved  with  his  small  garrison 
up  and  across  the  Mississippi  to  the  embryo  village  of  St. 
Louis.  This  post  had  been  founded  the  year  before  by 
Pierre  Laclede  Liguest  and  Auguste  Chouteau.  St.  Ange 
exercised  the  duties  of  commander  here  until  he  was  re- 
lieved in  1 770  by  Lieutenant-Governor  Don  Pedro  Piernas, 
the  first  Spanish  commandant  of.  upper  Louisiana. 

During  the  first  years  of  English  domination  in  Illinois 
there  was  a  large  exodus  of  the  French  inhabitants  to  New 
Orleans,  Ste.  Genevieve,  and  St.  Louis.  In  1 770  there  were 
one  hundred  wooden  and  fifteen  stone  buildings  in  the 
latter  place ;  there  was  also  a  small  log  chapel  (it  was  only 
in  1776  that  a  more  decent  building  was  erected).  At  the 
close  of  the  year  1765  the  whole  number  of  French  in 
Illinois  and  on  the  Wabash  did  not  exceed  two  thousand 
persons ;  of  the  Illinois  tribes  there  were  only  six  hundred 
and  fifty  warriors,  and  the  number  of  Miamis  on  the  Wabash 
able  to  bear  arms  was  still  less.  In  1769  an  Illinois  Indian 
of  the  Kaskaskia  band  was  bribed  by  an  English  settler  of 
Cahokia  with  a  barrel  of  whisky  to  kill  the  great  Ottawa 
war-chief,  Pontiac,  whose  vast  conspiracy  against  the  Eng- 
lish had  just  ended  in  a  complete  failure.  The  Western 
tribes,  who  had  loved  so  well  and  followed  so  faithfully  the 
great  and  luckless  conspirator,  took  a  fearful  revenge  on 
the  Indians  of  the  Illinois  countrj^,  and  the  small  remnant 


204  ^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xiii. 

who  survived  the  carnage  forever  after  sunk  into  utter 
insignificance. 

In  September,  i  760,  the  capitulation,  signed  at  Montreal 
between  General  Amherst  and  the  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil, 
governor  of  Canada,  giving  over  to  England  the  territory 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  and  south 
of  the  lakes  down  to  New  Orleans,  expressly  stipulated 
religious  liberty  for  the  former  French  subjects  living  in  the 
Northwest  Territory  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of 
Quebec,  with  all  the  privileges  which  the  bishop  and  clergy 
had  heretofore  enjoyed  under  French  rule.  The  main  pro- 
visions of  the  capitulation  were  ratified  by  the  preliminary 
treaty  of  peace,  signed  at  Fontainebleau  in  November, 
1762,  and  by  the  final  Treaty  of  Paris,  February  10,  1763. 
Later  on  (June,  1768)  the  Privy  Council,  in  answer  to  cer- 
tain questions  of  the  London  Board  of  Trade  concerning 
the  interpretation  of  the  religious  liberty  granted  by  the 
treaty  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  conquered  territory,  ga\e 
the  following  opinion  :  "  That  the  several  acts  of  Parliament 
which  impose  disabilities  and  penalties  upon  the  public 
exercise  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  do  not  extend  to 
Canada." 

Thus,  though  France  failed  to  keep'in  her  hands,  as  she 
had  demanded,  the  nomination  of  the  future  bishops  of 
Quebec,  or  to  secure,  as  she  had  asked,  for  the  Jesuits  the 
permanency  of  their  property  and  of  the  Indian  missions, 
yet  religious  liberty  and  episcopal  rights,  at  any  rate,  were 
safeguarded,  and  it  was  recognized  to  be  beyond  even  the 
power  of  the  king  to  abolish  them  in  virtue  of  his  supremacy 
as  head  of  the  Anglican  Church.  These  provisions  were 
embodied  in  a  proclamation  to  the  former  French  subjects 
of  the  West  by  General  Thomas  Gage,  the  British  com- 
mander-in-chief, whereby  he  informed  them  that  the 
country  was  about  to  be  taken  possession  of  by  the  British 


DECLINE    OE    THE   JLLE\01S   MISSIONS.  205 

forces,  and  ordered  them  to  take  an  oath  of  fidelity  and 
obedience  to  the  English  king  at  the-  hand  of  an  official 
sent  for  that  purpose. 

There  were  few  missionaries  at  this  time  :  in  Detroit  two, 
one  attending  the  French  in  the  city,  the  other  the  Indians 
across  the  river;  in  Indiana  and  Illinois  two,  until  Father 
Meurin,  an  aged  Jesuit,  arrived  from  New  Orleans  (Sep- 
tember, 1764)  to  be  the  third.  Under  such  circumstances 
religion  was  in  a  decadent  state  in  spite  of  the  guaranties 
and  privileges  of  the  treaty ;  and  such  was  the  embarrass- 
ment produced  in  Canada  by  the  change  of  government 
that  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  could  not  supply  the  needed 
laborers  to  the  Western  portion  of  his  flock.  In  1768  set 
out  from  Canada  for  the  Illinois  country,  not  only  with  the 
blessing  of  his  bishop,  but  also  with  the  consent  and  good 
wishes  of  the  English  authorities,  a  priest  who  was  destined 
to  play  in  our  Revolutionary  War  such  a  part  as  entitled 
him  to  be  called  "  the  patriot  priest  of  the  West " — the 
Rev.  Peter  Gibault.  He  took  up  his  residence  at  Kaskaskia, 
where  he  found,  besides  his  French  countrymen,  Catholic 
soldiers  of  the  Eighteenth  Royal  Irish  Regiment.  In  i  770 
he  blessed  a  little  wooden  chapel  at  Paincourt,  our  modern 
St.  Louis,  and  visited  Vincennes,  where  a  priest  had  not 
been  seen  since  1763.  He  found  straggling  Catholics  at 
Mackinaw,  St.  Joseph,  Peoria,  Ouiatanon,  and  at  two  places 
across  the  Mississippi  in  Spanish  territory,  Ste.  Genevieve 
and  St.  Louis.  Of  the  care  of  the  two  latter  posts  he 
was  relieved  in  1772,  two  Spanish  Capuchins  having  come 
from  New  Orleans  to  take  charge  of  them.  Such  was  the 
condition  of  the  church  in  the  West  when  the  Revolution- 
ary War  broke  out. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE   LOUISIANA    MISSIONS. 

Charlevoix  says  that  Louisiana  is  the  name  which  La 
Salle  gave  to  that  portion  of  North  America  watered  by 
the  Mississippi  and  lying  below  the  Illinois  River.  But 
the  French  put  no  such  limits  to  the  vague,  undefined 
country  they  called  Louisiana.  In  their  dreams  it  stretched 
eastward  to  the  head- waters  of  the  Ohio,  westward  to  the 
Rockies,  and  northward  to  the  Arctic  Ocean,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  possession  of  the  main  artery  carried  with  it  pos- 
session of  all  its  affluents.  However,  the  stricter  meaning 
of  La  Salle  is  accepted  in  this  work. 

The  Indians  that  inhabited  this  tract  are  known  as  the 
Mobilian  family.  This  family  included  three  considerable 
confederacies  east  of  the  Mississippi :  the  Chickasaws, 
faithful  allies  of  the  English,  bounded  on  the  north  by  the 
Ohio ;  below  the  Chickasaws,  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Tombigbee,  were  the  Choctaws,  given  more  than  any 
other  tribe  to  agriculture,  and  numbering  four  thousand 
warriors  (these  were  allies  of  the  French) ;  east  of  the 
Choctaws  was  the  confederacy  of  the  Creeks  or  Musk- 
hogees,  extending  as  far  as  the  Atlantic.  The  Seminoles 
of  Florida  were  vagrants  from  the  above-named  con- 
federacies, following  the  chase  rather  than  agriculture. 
Between  the  Chickasaws  and  the  Choctaws  was  the 
peculiar  tribe  of  the  Natchez,  supposed,  on  account  of 
their  religion,  customs,  and  advanced  civilization,  to  have 

206 


FRENCH   OCCUPATION  OF  LOUISIANA.  20J 

wandered  northward  from  Central  America.  All  these 
tribes  combined  contained  about  fifty  thousand  souls.  The 
descendants  of  the  Chickasaws,  Choctaws,  and  Creeks  are 
to  be  found  to-day  in  the  Indian  Territory,  almost  as 
numerous  as  ever,  good  farmers,  with  wonderful  capacity 
for  self-government  and  business ;  they  are  the  civilized 
nations  among  the  Indians  of  to-day.  West  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  south  of  the  Arkansas,  extending  down  into 
Texas  and  east  of  New  Mexico,  were  different  nations, 
or  rather  remnants  of  dying  nations,  not  so  numerous  or 
important  historically  as  the  tribes  named  above. 

After  the  miserable  failure  of  La  Salle's  naval  expedition 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  the  project  of  founding 
any  settlement  in  this  new  acquisition  was  apparently 
abandoned  by  the  court  of  France.  It  was  only  when 
rumors  came  that  the  English  were  preparing  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  La  Salle's  discovery  to  occupy  the  mouth  of 
the  great  river,  that  France  awoke  to  the  necessity  of 
heading  off  her  rival,   and   sent   Iberville,   in   December, 

1698,  to  form  a  colony  at  that  important  point.  He  made 
the  first  settlement  at  Biloxi,  so  named  from  a  neighboring 
Indian  band,  in  Harrison  County,  Mississippi,  February, 

1 699.  With  him  was  Father  Anastasius  Douay,  a  Recollect 
who  had  accompanied  La  Salle  in  his  ill-fated  expedition  to 
Matagorda  Bay,  had  survived  the  miseries  of  the  trip,  and 
had  made  his  way  back  to  France.  In  1702  the  seat  of 
the  colony  was  transferred  to  Mobile,  Ala.  It  was  only 
fifteen  years  later  (171  7)  that  a  point  on  the  Mississippi 
River  was  selected  for  the  capital  city  of  Louisiana;  at 
this  point  New  Orleans  was  founded. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  authorized 
the  seminary  of  Quebec  to  enter  the  missionary  field  of 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  invested  with  the  pow- 
ers of  vicar-general  the  superior  of   the   band   sent  out 


2o8  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xiv. 

for  this  purpose.  The  superior  was  De  Montigny ;  his 
companions  were  Davion  and  St.  Cosme.  De  Montigny 
took  up  his  residence  among  the  Taensas  (a  tribe  allied 
to  the  Natchez),  and  erected  there  a  chapel,  after  having 
baptized  eighty-five  children  in  the  first  year  of  his  labors. 
Davion  took  up  his  abode  in  a  village  (long  known  as 
Roche  a  Davion,  afterward  as  Loftus'  Heights,  and  to-day 
as  Fort  Adams)  in  the  State  of  Mississippi ;  his  labors 
were  also  extended  to  the  Yazoo  Indians.  St.  Cosme 
ascended  the  river  and  settled  among  the  Tamaroa  Indians 
at  a  site  that  became  later  on  Cahokia.  Presently  the 
seminary  sent  out  three  more  laborers,  Bergier,  Bouteville, 
and  St.  Cosme,  Jr.,  a  brother  of  the  missionary  at  Tamaroa. 
Bergier  settled  at  Tamaroa,  and  St.  Cosme,  Sr.,  descended 
to  Natchez.  De  Montigny  had  vacated  this  post  to  go  to 
France  in  the  hope  of  adjusting  difificulties  which  the 
arrival  of  this  body  of  diocesan  missionaries  had  raised  be- 
tween the  Jesuits  and  themselves. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  ecclesiastical  in  Louisi- 
ana when  Iberville  returned  from  France  in  1 700  with  a 
Jesuit,  Father  Du  Rhu,  who  ministered  to  the  Indians 
around  Biloxi  and  Mobile ;  the  French  at  these  posts  were 
in  charge  of  a  secular  priest.  Humble  and  restricted  as 
were  at  first  this  Jesuit  father's  labors,  it  was  not  long  be- 
fore a  request  was  made  to  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  that  the 
exclusive  direction  of  the  French  posts  in  Louisiana  be 
committed  to  the  society,  and  that  their  superior  in  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  be  made  vicar-general.  The 
bishop  refused,  thinking  it  best  that  no  one  religious  order 
should  have  the  monopoly  of  the  field.  The  matter  was 
appealed  to  the  king,  who  referred  it  to  the  Bishops  of 
Marseilles  and  Chartres.  This  commission  decided  in 
favor  of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  and  the  seminary.  The 
first  missionary  to  lay  down  his  life  in  the  Louisiana  mis- 


CHARLEVOIX  IN  LOUISIAN-A.  209 

sions  was  Nicholas  Foucault,  a  seminary  priest,  who  was 
massacred  by  the  Arkansas  in  1702.  The  scene  of  his 
death  and  resting-place  is  not  known.  The  second  victim 
was  St.  Cosme,  who,  on  his  way  from  his  Natchez  mission 
to  Mobile,  was  massacred  by  the  Sitimachas  about  fifty 
miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  (1706). 

In  August,  1 71 7,  the  regent,  Duke  of  Orleans,  trans- 
ferred, in  the  name  of  Louis  XV.,  the  proprietorship  of 
Louisiana  to  the  Commercial  Company  of  the  West.  The 
fifty-third  clause  of  the  transfer  obliged  the  company  to 
build  at  its  expense  churches  at  the  places  where  it  should 
establish  settlements,  and  to  maintain  the  necessary  num- 
ber of  approved  ecclesiastics,  all  under  the  authority  of 
the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who  had  the  nomination  of  the 
priests  of  the  colony.  Charlevoix,  in  his  voyage  from 
Quebec  to  New  Orleans,  was  at  Natchez  in  December, 
1721.  "Though  for  a  time,"  he  says,  "a  priest  lived 
here,  his  labors  were  without  fruit  among  the  Indians,  and 
there  was  no  priest  there  at  the  time."  In  fact,  from  the 
Illinois  River  to  New  Orleans  he  met  with  no  missionary 
on  the  river.  It  was  five  years  and  more  since  any  priest 
had  been  among  the  French  settlers  at  Natchez.  They 
had  fallen  into  a  state  of  indifference.  In  January,  1722, 
he  arrived  at  New  Orleans.  He  describes  it  as  a  place 
of  a  hundred  houses,  scattered  about  without  any  order. 
Yet  he  ventures  to  predict  that  this  would  become  a 
wealthy  city  and  the  metropolis  of  a  large  colony,  and 
he  gives  good  reasons  for  his  prophecy.  He  does  not 
speak  of  the  spiritual  condition  of  the  place.  But  he  must 
have  made  a  secret  report  as  to  the  general  condition  of 
the  colony  that  caused  the  Company  of  the  West  to  bestir 
themselves. 

For  Louisiana  was  divided  soon  after  into  three  eccle- 
siastical  sections.     The    section   north   of   the    Ohio,   the 


210  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xiv, 

Illinois  missions,  was  left  to  the  Jesuits  and  the  seminary 
priests,  as  heretofore.  The  second  section  contained  the 
settlements  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  coun- 
try west  of  the  river  as  far  north  as  the  confluence  of  the 
Ohio.  This  was  put  under  the  immediate  charge  of  Bishop 
Duplessis  de  Mornay,  lately  named  coadjutor  to  the  Bishop 
of  Quebec,  and  his  vicar-general,  who  governed  this  section 
from  France,  where  he  resided.  He  gave  charge  of  the 
French  settlements  and  the  Indian  missions  in  this  section 
to  the  Capuchins,  to  which  order  he  belonged.  The  third 
section  was  the  countr}'  south  of  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the 
Mississippi.  This  was  confided  to  the  Carmelites ;  but 
there  is  record  of  the  coming  to  Louisiana  of  only  one 
father  of  that  order.  The  Bishop  of  Quebec  turned  over 
this  section  also  to  the  Capuchins.  However,  the  Capuchins 
did  not  have  the  men  to  send,  and,  moreover,  felt  that  they 
could  not  do  work  among  the  Indians  so  well  as  the 
veteran  campaigners,  the  Jesuits.  With  the  approval  of 
the  Bishop  of  Quebec  they  gave  the  country  north  of 
Natchez  to  the  Jesuits,  and  reserved  to  themselves  the 
region  south  of  that  point.  Still  later  (1726)  the  Capu- 
chins were  restricted  to  the  care  of  the  French  posts  in 
their  district,  the  charge  of  the  Indian  missions  going  to 
the  Jesuits.  Under  this  arrangement  the  Jesuits  gained  a 
residence  for  their  superior  in  New  Orleans,  without  any 
jurisdiction,  however,  over  the  whites,  and  under  a  Capu- 
chin vicar-general. 

The  French  settlements  were  growing.  Mobile  had 
sixty  families,  New  Orleans  six  hundred.  A  great  acces- 
sion to  the  power  of  the  church  in  New  Orleans  came  with 
the  Ursulines.  Through  the  influence  of  Father  De 
Beaubois,  the  Jesuit  superior,  these  nuns  came  from  France 
in  1727,  and  set  up  a  convent  and  a  higher  educational 
institution  for  girls,  the  first  of  the  kind  within  the  limits 


TROUBLE   IN  NEW  ORLEANS.  211 

of  the  present  republic.  The  Catholic  Indians  throughout 
the  colony  were  not  numerous ;  the  greatest  number  was 
to  be  found  among  the  Appalachees,  who  fled  from  Florida 
to  seek  protection  from  the  raids  of  the  Protestant  colonists 
of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  under  cover  of  the  French 
guns  of  Mobile.  The  Jesuits  entered  zealously  into  the 
work  of  converting  the  tribes  of  Louisiana;  missions  were 
established  by  them  on  the  Arkansas  River,  and  among 
the  Choctaws,  the  Yazoos,  and  the  Chickasaws.  These 
missions,  however,  were  broken  up  (1729)  by  the  revolt 
of  the  Natchez,  into  which  the  neighboring  Indians  were 
drawn,  and  in  which  Fathers  Dupoisson  and  Souel  lost 
their  lives.  After  the  quelling  of  this  rebellion  by  the 
French  forces  the  missions  were  again  resumed. 

From  this  time  on  the  sources  of  information  as  to  the 
history  of  the  missions  are  scant.  This  much  seems  evi- 
dent :  that  no  great  success  attended  the  labors  of  the 
missionaries.  In  New  Orleans  itself  the  church  was  dis- 
tracted by  the  maladministration  of  the  Capuchin  vicar- 
general  and  his  unjustifiable  enmity  to  the  Jesuits.  The 
Bishop  of  Quebec  finally  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
best  interests  of  religion  demanded  that  the  powers  of. 
administration  should  be  transferred  from  the  Capuchins 
to  the  Jesuits ;  and  thus  the  office  of  vicar-general  was 
given  into  the  hands  of  the  latter  from  the  year  1750  until 
their  suppression,  which  was  decreed  in  Paris  in  1761  and 
executed  in  Louisiana  in  1763.  The  property  of  the 
society  in  the  province  was  confiscated  and  sold  for 
$180,000,  a  large  sum  at  that  day.  All  the  fathers,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  in  the  Illinois  district,  were  removed, 
and  the  Capuchins,  freed  from  the  presence  of  their 
formidable  rivals,  remained  masters  of  the  field ;  but  not 
to  the  advantage  of  religion,  as  we  shall  see. 

At  the  same  time  Louisiana  passed  under  Spanish  rule. 


212  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai'.  xiv. 

When  the  representative  of  Spain,  Governor  O'Reilly, 
came  to  New  Orleans  in  i  769,  the  total  population  of  the 
province,  including  St.  Louis,  was  13,238,  half  of  whom 
were  negro  slaves.  This  number  does  not  comprise  the 
Catholic  Indian  population,  an  exact  account  of  which  it 
is  not  easy  to  get.  After  the  suppression  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  no  further  steady  effort  was  made  for  their  evan- 
gelization. Nowhere  in  the  United  States  was  the  success 
so  small.  To-day  we  find  traces  of  the  work  of  the  early 
missionaries  among  our  present  Indians  who  formerly 
lived  in  the  East  and  the  Northwest,  in  Florida  and  New 
Mexico  ;  but  none  among  the  Indians  from  the  lower  Mis- 
sissippi Valley,  if  we  except  a  small  band  of  Quapaws  from 
Arkansas,  now  living  in  the  Indian  Territory.  The  blame 
must  be  laid  to  the  misunderstanding  between  the  Jesuits 
and  the  seculars,  the  Jesuits  and  the  Capuchins  of  Louisi- 
ana, to  the  want  of  zeal  in  the  government  for  the  work 
of  the  missions,  to  the  suppression  of  the  society  just  at 
the  time  they  were  entering  this  field,  and,  finally,  to  the 
political  jealousies  and  wars  of  the  European  nations  fight- 
ing for  the  mastery  of  North  America.  It  is  a  pity,  for 
the  Indians  whose  former  home  was  in  that  section  are  to- 
day the  most  civilized,  cultivated,  and  wealthy  of  the  248,- 
340  still  remaining  in  the  United  States,  according  to  the 
calculations  of  the  Indian  Bureau. 

Of  this  total  it  is  hard  to  say  how  many  are  Catholics. 
Hoffman's  "Catholic  Directory"  of  1894  says  97,850; 
Sadlier's  "Catholic  Directory"  of  1894  says  58,750;  the 
"  Independent"  of  April  5,  1894,  says  45,1 10;  perhaps  it 
will  be  safe  for  us  to  say  50,000.  At  any  rate,  this  may 
be  said  with  certainty  :  that  there  was  not  a  tribe  in  all  the 
extent  of  the  United  States  to  which  the  gospel  was  not 
preached  by  Catholic  missionaries  from  the  year  1520 
down  to  the  time  of  our  War  of  Independence  ;  and,  again, 


SPANISH   OCCUPATIOX  OF  LOUISIANA.  213 

this :  that  many  a  red  man  fell  away  from  the  faith,  once 
held  by  his  fathers,  in  the  inevitable  and  often  cruel  flight 
before  the  incoming  tide  of  European  immigration ;  and, 
again,  this  :  that  the  missionaries  of  the  old  church  are  now 
once  more  at  work  among  the  aborigines,  parked  in  their 
reservations,  to  preserve  the  fruits  of  the  labors  of  their 
predecessors,  and  to  reclaim  to  Christianity  and  civilization 
the  sad  remnants  of  a  race  once  the  master  of  this  splendid 
domain. 

From  the  year  1763  Louisiana  was  under  the  dominion 
of  Spain  until  the  30th  of  November,  181 3,  when  it  re- 
verted to  France ;  not  for  long,  however,  for  twenty  days 
afterward  it  was  formally  ceded  to  the  United  States.  By 
rescript  of  September  i,  1805,  Pius  VII.  placed  this  new 
acquisition  of  the  republic  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Bishop 
Carroll  as  administrator  apostolic.  During  the  forty-two 
years  from  1763  to  1805  the  condition  of  the  church  in 
Louisiana  was  not  by  any  means  of  the  best.  The  Capu- 
chins who  were  in  charge  were  not  all  of  them  models  of 
ecclesiastical  virtues,  there  was  no  immediate  episcopal 
supervision,  and  the  missions  fell  into  a  sad  state  of 
neglect ;  though  the  church  received  at  this  time  a  strong 
reinforcement  in  numbers  from  some  five  hundred  Acadi- 
ans,  who  from  their  ruined  colony  in  Nova  Scotia  escaped 
to  San  Domingo  and  thence  to  New  Orleans. 

The  province,  in  passing  from  the  control  of  France, 
was  no  longer  under  the  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of 
Quebec,  but  became  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Bishop  of  Santiago  de  Cuba.  In  1772  the  bishop  of  that 
see,  James  Joseph  de  Echeverria,  sent  to  New  Orleans 
four  Spanish  Capuchins,  with  Father  Cyril  de  Barcelona 
as  superior.  But  Father,  Dagobert,  the  former  French 
superior,  roused  the  people  against  the  newcomers,  and 
the  governor,  fearing  his  removal  would  be  disastrous  to 


214  ^-^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xiv. 

Spanish  interests  under  the  circumstances,  allowed  him  to 
retain  his  position,  though  his  well-known  shortcomings 
rendered  him  quite  unworthy  of  it.  Convinced  by  this 
fact  and  others  of  like  nature  that  discipline  needed  the 
presence  of  a  superior  authority,  the  Bishop  of  Santiago 
obtained  from  Rome  the  appointment  of  Father  Cyril  as 
his  coadjutor,  with  residence  in  New  Orleans. 

The  jurisdiction  of  the  new  appointee  was  to  embrace 
the  southeastern  Spanish  possessions  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Atlantic — that  is  to  say,  the  States  of  Louisiana, 
Alabama,  Florida,  and  others  bordering  on  the  western 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  up  to  Missouri.  At  this  time  the 
church  in  Louisiana,  extending  up  to  St.  Louis  and  Ste. 
Genevieve,  Mo.,  contained  seventeen  parishes  and  twenty- 
one  priests.  However,  Bishop  Cyril  did  not  succeed  in 
restoring  discipline  to  the  church  under  his  administration  ; 
he  fell  under  the  displeasure  of  the  king  and  of  his  ordi- 
nary— no  longer  the  Bishop  of  Santiago,  but  the  Bishop 
of  Havana,  a  new  see  erected  in  1787.  The  unfortunate 
prelate  was  banished  by  a  royal  order  (1793)  to  his  Capu- 
chin province  of  Catalonia,  in  Spain.  The  growing  evils 
of  the  church  in  Louisiana  moved  Pius  VL  to  erect  that 
province  into  an  independent  bishopric,  April  27,  1793. 
The  first  bishop  of  the  new  diocese  was  Louis  Penalver  y 
Cardenas,  a  native  of  Havana,  a  man  of  irreproachable  life. 

He  recorded,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  New  Orleans  (July 
I7>  1795).  his  impressions:  "As  to  reestablishing  the 
purity  of  religion  and  reforming  the  morals  of  the  people, 
I  have  encountered  many  obstacles.  The  inhabitants  do 
not  listen  to,  or,  if  they  do,  they  disregard,  all  exhortations 
to  maintain  the  Catholic  faith  in  its  orthodoxy,  and  to 
preserve  innocence  of  life.  Because  his  Majesty  tolerates 
Protestants  here  for  sound  reasons  of  state,  bad  Catholics, 
whose  numbers  are  great,  think  that  they  are  authorized 


COMPLAIXTS   ()]■    THE   BISHOP.  21$ 

to  live  without  any  religion  at  all.  Out  of  the  eleven 
thousand  souls  composing  this  parish  [the  cathedral] 
scarcely  three  or  four  hundred  comply  with  the  obligation 
of  receiving  the  holy  eucharist  once  a  year.  Not  more 
than  a  quarter  of  the  population  ever  hear  mass.  Most 
of  the  men  live  in  a  state  of  concubinage,  and  there  are 
fathers  who  procure  mistresses  for  their  sons  to  divert  them 
from  marrying.  Their  houses  are  full  of  books  written 
against  religion  and  the  state." 

A  very  sad  condition,  to  be  sure — the  natural  fruit  of 
a  clergy  that  had  forgotten  the  high  and  sacred  duties  of 
their  calling.  No  wonder  that  the  first  efforts  of  reform 
should  be  directed  by  the  zealous  bishop  to  the  leaders  of 
the  flock.  With  this  intent  he  issued  at  once,  to  serve  as 
a  rule  until  a  diocesan  synod  could  be  held,  a  document 
entitled  "  Instructions  for  the  Government  of  the  Pari.sh 
Priests  of  the  Diocese  of  Louisiana."  He  then  set  about 
visiting  his  diocese.  Unfortunately  the  records  of  his 
administration  have  all  perished.  We  possess,  however,  a 
general  description  of  the  condition  of  religion  written  by 
him  in  i  799. 

It  appears  from  this  description  that  the  source  of  the 
religious  evils  and  the  great  danger  to  the  Spanish  power 
were  his  American  neighbors.  "  The  emigration  from  the 
western  part  of  the  United  States  and  the  toleration  of 
our  government  have  introduced  into  this  colony  a  gang 
of  adventurers,  who  have  no  religion  and  acknowledge  no 
God;  they  have  made  the  morals  of  our  people  much 
worse  by  intercourse  with  them  in  trade;  they  fill  the 
minds  of  our  people  with  dangerous  ideas  in  harmony  with 
their  own  restless,  ambitious  character."  He  then  goes 
on  to  advocate  a  restriction  of  this  kind  of  immigration. 
The  good  bishop  was  striving  unwittingly  with  the  inevi- 
table when  he  dreamed  of  rolling  back  the  American  tide. 


2 1 6  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xiv. 

The  doom  was  writ  large  enough,  but  he  did  not  see  or 
could  not  read  the  handwriting.  He  was  spared  the 
spectacle  of  the  danger  he  so  much  dreaded ;  in  July, 
1 80 1,  he  was  promoted  to  the  see  of  Guatemala.  Less 
than  two  years  afterward  the  control  of  Spain  came  to  an 
end,  Louisiana  became  a  part  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  church  in  that  region  came  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  first  Bishop  of  Baltimore,  the  Right  Rev.  John  Carroll. 
Its  further  history  belongs  to  the  second  part  of  this  work. 


Part  III.    The  English  Missions. 


CHAPTER    XV. 


THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    CATHOLICITY    IN    THE    COLONIES 

(1634-48). 

The  love  and  pursuit  of  religious  liberty  led  to  the 
foundation  of  Maryland.  The  penal  laws  of  Elizabeth 
drove  some  of  her  Catholic  subjects  to  seek  across  the 
Atlantic  a  safe  haven  where  they  might  worship  God  in 
freedom.  As  early  as  1584  two  hundred  and  sixty  Cath- 
olics, under  the  lead  of  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  attempted 
to  establish  a  colony  in  the  country  of  Norumbega,  sup- 
posed to  be  in  the  present  State  of  Maine.  The  attempt 
was  a  failure.  Of  the  three  vessels  that  sailed,  one  went 
down  with  the  leader,  the  others  made  their  way  back  to 
England. 

A  second  attempt  was  made  in  1605,  under  the  patron- 
age of  Sir  Thomas,  Lord  Arundel  of  Wardour,  and  of 
Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton  ;  a  vessel  sent 
out  to  select  a  spot  arrived  in  the  Kennebec  River.  But 
the  project  was  opposed  by  no  less  a  personage  than  the 
famous  English  Jesuit,  Father  Parsons,  and  it  came  to 
naught. 

The  third  attempt  was  made  in  1627,  and  it,  too,  failed 
of  success.     The  leader  was  Sir  George  Calvert,  clerk  of 

217 


2l8  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

tiie  privy  council,  knighted  in  1617,  made  one  of  the 
secretaries  of  state  in  161 8.  At  an  early  date  he  became 
interested  in  American  colonization ;  for,  besides  being- 
one  of  the  councilors  of  the  New  England  Company,  he 
was  also  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Company.  He  became 
a  Catholic  in  1623,  and  resigned  the  position  of  secretary 
of  state.  King  James  I.  tried  to  induce  him  to  remain  in 
oflfice.  Failing  in  this,  he  appointed  him  to  the  privy 
council  and  raised  him  to  the  Irish  peerage  as  Baron  Bal- 
timore of  Baltimore  in  the  county  of  Longford,  Ireland.  In 
1620  Lord  Baltimore  bought  from  Sir  William  Vaughan, 
who  had  a  patent  for  part  of  Newfoundland,  his  rights  over 
the  southeastern  peninsula  of  that  island  ;  and  the  next  year 
he  sent  out  to  his  purchase  a  body  of  colonists.  In  1622 
he  applied  for  a  patent  directly  to  the  crown,  and  all 
Newfoundland  was  granted  to  him.  The  colony  was 
named  Avalon,  in  commemoration  of  the  spot  where, 
according  to  tradition,  Christianity  was  first  preached  in 
Britain.  He  visited  his  colony  in  1627,  and  the  next  year 
moved  his  family  thither.  But  various  causes  induced 
him  to  abandon  it.  He  had  serious  troubles — even  a 
small  naval  warfare — with  French  claimants;  one  of  the 
colonists,  a  Puritan  minister,  complained  to  the  English 
authorities  that  Baltimore  had  brought  out  with  him  popish 
priests  and  favored  the  popish  worship  ;  above  all,  he  found 
that  the  climate  was  too  inhospitable  for  successful  colo- 
nization. 

Taking  with  him  as  many  of  the  colonists  as  would  fol- 
low him,  he  sailed  for  Jamestown,  Va.,  October  i,  1629. 
The  foundation  of  Virginia  preceded  that  of  Maryland. 
On  the  19th  of  December,  1606 — one  hundred  and  nine 
years  after  the  discovery  of  Cabot,  ninety  years  after  the 
first  voyage  of  Ponce  de  Leon  to  Florida,  fifty-nine  years 
after  the  foundation  of  St.  Augustine — Jamestown  was 


THE  MARYLAND   CHARTER.  219 

founded  by  one  hundred  and  five  English  colonists.  The 
welcome  of  the  Virginians  for  Lord  Baltimore  was  by  no 
means  cordial.  Governor  Pott  and  William  Claiborne  would 
not  allow  him  to  settle  in  the  neighborhood  unless  he  took 
the  oaths  of  supremacy  and  allegiance.  In  this  proceed- 
ing they  went  beyond  their  powers,  and  forgot  the  posi- 
tion Baltimore  held  in  the  Virginia  Company.  But  they 
knew  that,  as  a  Catholic,  he  could  not  take  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  and  cunningly  surmised  that  they  could  thus 
get  rid  of  him.  He  returned  to  England,  and  asked  for  a 
part  of  the  unsettled  region  north  of  the  Potomac.  This 
was  granted,  and  at  the  king's  request  the  new  colony 
received  the  name  of  Maryland  (Terra  Mariae),  in  honor 
of  the  queen,  Henrietta  Maria. 

The  formal  document  of  the  grant  was  issued  not  to 
the  first  Lord  Baltimore  (he  died  April  13,  1632,  just  be- 
fore it  was  made  out),  but  to  his  heir,  Lord  Cecil,  second 
Lord  Baltimore.  The  boundaries  were  very  precisely 
defined  in  the  grant :  on  the  north  the  fortieth  parallel  of 
north  longitude  ;  on  the  west  a  line  running  south  from 
this  parallel  to  the  farthest  source  of  the  Potomac,  and 
thence  to  the  Chesapeake  Bay  ;  on  the  east  the  ocean  and 
the  Delaware  River  and  Bay.  These  boundaries  included 
all  the  present  State  of  Delaware,  a  large  tract  of  land 
now  inclosed  partly  in  Pennsylvania  and  partly  in  West 
Virginia,  and  the  State  of  Maryland.  The  charter  was 
the  most  liberal  ever  issued  by  the  English  crown.  The 
other  colonies  were  granted  to  chartered  companies,  who 
managed  them  on  the  joint-stock  principle ;  but  the  grant 
of  Maryland  was  to  an  individual,  the  lord  proprietary, 
with  all  legislative  and  executive  powers  to  administer  the 
colon}-  as  his  private  estate,  under  the  sovereignty  of  the 
crown,  free  from  all  taxation  on  the  part  of  England,  with 
the  exception  of  the  delivery  of  two  Indian  arrows  yearly 


220  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

and  a  fifth  of  all  the  precious  metals  found,  as  an  acknowl- 
edgment of  feudal  tenure. 

Two  vessels  were  fitted  out,  the  "  Ark,"  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  tons,  and  the  "  Dove,"  of  fifty  tons — 
emblems  of  happy  omen :  the  one  refuge  of  political,  the 
other  olive-branch  of  religious,  liberty.  Twenty  gentlemen 
and  between  two  and  three  hundred  laboring-men,  mostly 
Catholics,  embarked  as  colonists.  Leaving  Gravesend  on 
the  1 8th  of  October,  they  stopped  at  the  Isle  of  Wight  to 
take  on  board  two  Jesuit  fathers.  White  and  Altham.  It 
is  the  "  Relatio  Itineris "  of  Father  White  (discovered, 
1822,  in  the  archives  of  the  professed  house  of  the  Jesuits 
in  Rome  by  an  American  Jesuit,  Father  William  Mc- 
Sherry)  that  is  the  chief  authority  for  the  early  history  of 
Maryland.  On  March  25,  1634,  the  pilgrims  landed  on 
an  island  at  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac,  that  they  named 
St.  Clement's,  of  which  to-day  only  a  sand-bank  remains. 
Mass  was  celebrated,  and  a  cross  was  planted,  to  indicate 
that  the  newcomers  were  Christians  and  meant  to  make 
Christian  the  land  of  their  choice. 

The  neighboring  Indians,  a  mild  race  compared  with  the 
near  Susquehannas  and  farther  Iroquois,  welcomed  the 
strangers  cordially.  Governor  Leonard  Calvert,  brother 
of  Lord  Baltimore,  and  his  lieutenant  (for  Lord  Cecil  did 
not  emigrate),  went  directly  to  visit  the  great  chief  of  the 
region,  emperor  of  Piscataway,  was  welcomed,  and  was  bid- 
den settle  anywhere  he  chose.  After  tarrying  awhile  (ac- 
cording to  tradition,  at  St.  Inigoes)  the  pilgrims  ascended 
the  Potomac  to  the  present  St.  Mary's.  The  natives  there, 
harried  by  the  Susquehannas,  were  about  to  abandon 
their  homes.  For  some  trifling  European  objects  they 
sold  out  to  the  Europeans.  Father  White  was  assigned 
to  the  chief's  hut,  which  he  dedicated  as  the  privuivi 
Marylandi(B  sacelhivi  (the  first  chapel  in  Maryland).     The 


STATUS   OF  CHURCH  IN  MARYLAND.  221 

relations  between  the  Marylanders  and  tlie  Indians  were 
always  cordial.  We  have  to  record  in  this  chapter  no 
wars  such  as  stained  the  history  of  Canada  and  the  north- 
ern English  colonies.  The  Indians  of  Maryland  have  dis- 
appeared entirely,  not  by  the  violence  and  cruelties  of  the 
whites,  rather  through  what  may  be  called  a  process  of 
painless  extinction,  no  one  knows  how.  The  woes  of  the 
colony  in  her  early  years  came  not  from  them,  but  from 
her  Virginian  neighbors.  The  story  of  Claiborne's  claim 
to  Kent  Island,  evidently  comprised  within  the  Maryland 
charter,  and  the  intercolonial  warfares  that  resulted  from  that 
claim,  belongs  to  secular  rather  than  to  religious  history. 

In  his  first  colonization  in  Newfoundland  Lord  Balti- 
more, as  head  of  the  colony,  had  brought  with  him  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant  clergymen.  The  Protestant 
clergyman  complained  of  the  importation  of  the  Catholic 
priests  and  the  toleration  given  to  the  Catholic  worship, 
and  thereby  almost  brought  Lord  Baltimore  into  trouble 
with  the  home  government.  Taught  by  this  experience. 
Lord  Cecil  left  the  colonists  free  to  supply  themselves  with 
clergymen.  As  lord  proprietor  he  took  no  action  in  this 
regard,  and  thus  he  was  the  first  American  colonizer  to 
put  in  practice  the  disestablishment  and  disendowment 
of  the  church  and  to  inaugurate  the  voluntary  system  of 
church  support.  He  informed  the  English  provincial  and 
the  general  of  the  Jesuits  at  Rome  that  he  could  offer  the 
clergy  no  subvention,  "  nor  can  they  expect  sustenance 
from  heretics  hostile  to  the  faith,  nor  from  Catholics  for 
the  most  part  poor,  nor  from  savages  who  live  after  the 
manner  of  wild  beasts." 

The  two  fathers  who  accompanied  the  emigrants  were 
to  go  as  gentleman  adventurers  and  take  up  lands  on  the 
same  conditions  as  the  others.  Any  colonist  of  the  first 
emigration  who  brought  with  him  five  men  received  two 


222  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

thousand  acres  of  land,  subject  to  an  annual  quit-rent  of 
four  hundred  pounds  of  wheat.  One  who  came  between 
1634-35  bringing  ten  men  had  the  same  allotment  of  land 
at  the  rent  of  six  hundred  pounds  of  wheat ;  and  for  those 
who  came  later,  or  brought  fewer  men,  the  land  given 
was  proportionately  less  and  the  rates  higher.  Under  this 
arrangement  Father  Philip  Fisher,  claiming  his  religious 
companions  as  men  brought  over  by  him,  took  his  share 
of  land ;  and  afterward  the  Jesuits,  as  they  came  to  the 
colony,  acquired  more  land  by  the  same  process.  This 
was  the  source  of  their  sustenance  for  themselves  and  their 
churches  down  to  the  date  of  their  suppression. 

Not  only  did  the  first  fathers  minister  to  the  Catholic 
settlers  of  St.  Mary's — a  work  that  did  not  take  up  all  of 
their  time — but  they  also  reached  out  for  the  Indians,  and 
extended  the  field  of  their  labors  as  more  priests  came  to 
help  them  in  the  years  following.  The  superior.  Father 
John  Brock,  resided  at  their  plantation,  apparently  St.  In- 
igoes.  Father  Altham  was  stationed  on  Kent  Island,  off 
the  eastern  shore,  a  great  center  of  Indian  trade ;  Father 
Fisher  was  at  St.  Mary's,  the  capital  of  the  colony  ;  Father 
White  at  first  took  up  his  residence  among  the  Patuxents, 
many  of  whom  he  converted,  and  from  whom  he  received 
a  considerable  grant  of  land.  In  1639  he  went  to  the 
Piscataways  residing  near  the  present  town  of  that  name, 
fifteen  miles  south  of  Washington.  The  chief,  Chilomacon, 
was  converted,  and  solemnly  baptized  in  the  presence  of 
the  authorities  of  the  colony.  As  the  Piscataways  were 
exposed  to  the  inroads  of  their  neighbors,  the  fierce  Sus- 
quehannas.  Father  White  removed  his  residence  from 
their  vihage  to  the  European  settlements,  and  thencefor- 
ward made  only  excursions  to  the  Indian  tribes.  Almost 
the  whole  tribe  of  the  Patuxents  was  brought  at  an  early 
date  to  the  faith. 


THE  JESUITS  IN  MARYLAND.  221 

The  work  of  the  missionaries  extended  also  to  Virginia, 
and  some  of  the  settlers  there  were  converted.  In  conse- 
quence of  this  inroad  of  Catholicity  an  act  was  passed  in 
that  colony,  in  1641,  that  no  popish  recusant  should  be 
allowed  to  hold  any  office,  under  the  penalty  of  a  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco,  the  currency  of  the  times;  and  thus 
was  a  stop  put  to  the  work  of  conversion  in  Virginia. 
Meanwhile  the  population  of  Maryland  was  steadily  grow- 
ing. Colonists,  attracted  by  pamphlets  and  letters  of  the 
early  planters,  came  out  in  numbers  and  took  up  manors 
and  plantations.  '  The  emigrants  were  of  a  kind  most  de- 
sirable for  a  new  colony — men  of  substance  with  families, 
and  laboring-men  seeking  homes.  No  religious  or  political 
tests  hampered  them ;  simple  allegiance  to  the  lord  pro- 
prietor in  England,  and  self-government  of  the  broadest 
kind  in  their  new  home,  were  irresistible  inducements.  No 
towns  or  great  agglomerations  of  population  were  formed, 
nor  were  they  needed.  The  plantations  faced  on  the  bay, 
the  rivers,  the  creeks ;  so  that  vessels  could  load  tobacco 
and  unload  goods  at  every  man's  door,  so  to  speak.  Such 
conditions  of  life  created  that  patriarchal  state  of  society, 
that  strong  family  feeling,  so  characteristic  of  early  Mary- 
land. 

Meanwhile  trouble  was  brewing  for  the  Jesuits.  On 
reports  from  Lewgar,  secretary  of  the  colony,  Baltimore 
became  prejudiced  against  them,  declared  the  grant  of 
land  made  them  by  the  Patuxents  to  be  null  and  void, 
objected  to  their  further  acquisition  of  land  in  that  way, 
and  applied  to  'the  Propaganda  for  a  prefect  apostolic  and 
secular  priests.  Already  the  Propaganda  had  taken  steps 
in  this  direction  (1641),  and,  though  the  Jesuits  remon- 
strated in  an  appeal  to  the  holy  see,  two  secular  priests 
arrived  in  Maryland  (1642).  However,  a  reconciliation 
between  Baltimore  and  the  Jesuits  was  effected  through 


224  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

mutual  friends ;  but  the  lord  proprietor  exacted  severe 
conditions.  The  Jesuits  had  to  give  up  all  lands  ceded 
by  the  Patuxents,  and  to  promise  to  accept  no  more  grants 
of  the  kind ;  they  were  to  take  up  no  more  lands,  except 
with  the  permission  of  the  lord  proprietor.  They  were  to 
claim  no  special  exemptions  and  privileges,  except  those 
allowed  by  the  common  English  law.  No  new  Jesuit 
recruits  were  to  be  sent  to  the  colony  without  his  permis- 
sion. Any  missionary  then  or  thereafter  in  the  colony 
was  to  be  recalled  within  the  year  on  his  demand.  They 
had  to  take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  him.  Baltimore  was 
a  good  Catholic,  but  he  was  also  a  sturdy  Englishman. 
We  see  in  these  conditions  the  fear  lest  the  church  should 
acquire  too  much  real  estate,  lest  the  clergy  should  claim 
exemptions  and  immunities  of  a  past  age  and  assert  inde- 
pendence of  the  common  law  and  the  constituted  author- 
ities. 

But  a  worse  storm  came  from  Virginia,  and  for  a  time 
overthrew  the  missions.  Maryland  opened  her  doors  and 
ofTered  hospitality,  with  civil  and  religious  liberty,  to  the 
Puritans  persecuted  in  Virginia.  When  the  royal  power 
in  England  fell  before  the  Covenanters,  the  guests  of 
Maryland  proved  ungrateful  and  returned  evil  for  good. 
The  inveterate  enemy  of  the  Catholic  colony,  Claiborne, 
used  them  as  tools  to  overthrow  the  authority  of  the  Bal- 
timores  and  crush  out  Catholicity.  He  invaded  the  colony 
(1645),  drove  out  Leonard  Calvert,  looted  the  plantations 
of  the  Catholic  gentry  and  the  Jesuits,  put  in  irons  Fathers 
White  and  Copley,  and  sent  them  to  England,  where  they 
lingered  awhile,  to  be  sent  afterward  into  exile.  Two 
other  Jesuits,  Rigbee  and  Cooper,  hid  themselves  in  Vir- 
ginia; Father  Hartwell,  the  superior,  sank  under  the  blow 
and  died  within  the  year.  Not  a  priest  was  left  in  all 
Maryland. 


AC^J^  OF    TOLERATION.  225 

The  Jesuits,  within  twelve  years,  had  done  a  noble  work. 
The  Indian  tribes  on  the  Potomac  and  the  Patuxent  had 
been  instructed,  and  many  had  been  received  into  the 
church.  Father  White  had  compiled  an  Indian  catechism, 
still  extant  in  Rome,  in  manuscript,  and  also  a  Maryland 
grammar  and  vocabulary,  of  which  no  traces  have  as  yet 
been  found.  He  was  undoubtedly  the  first  Englishman 
to  reduce  an  Indian  language  to  grammatical  forms. 

The  lord  proprietary  considered  his  pro\ince  lost,  and 
had  no  further  hope  but  to  save  what  he  could  of  his 
property.  Not  so  his  brother,  the  governor,  Leonard 
Calvert.  Toward  the  end  of  1646  he  raised  a  small  force, 
with  which  he  reestablished  once  more  Baltimore's  author- 
ity over  the  colony.  He  did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  his  victory,  for  he  died  on  the  9th  of  June,  1647. 
Once  more  the  field  was  open  to  the  Jesuits ;  those  that 
had  sought  refuge  in  Virginia  returned,  and  others  came 
from  England.  By  this  time  the  Protestants  in  the  prov- 
ince began  to  increase,  and  threatened  to  outnumber  the 
Catholics  in  the  near  future;  this,  no  doubt,  was  the  reason 
why  Lord  Baltimore,  while  naming  as  governor  William 
Stone,  a  Protestant,  reconstructed  the  council  so  as  to  give 
the  Catholics  a  majority.  At  the  same  time  he  caused  to 
be  established  by  act  of  the  legislature  that  freedom  of  con- 
science which  he  and  his  father  had  advocated  and  prac- 
ticed from  the  beginning.  The  famous  act  of  toleration 
was  passed  in  the  colonial  Assembly,  April,  1649.  In 
that  body  sat  eight  Catholics  and  five  Protestants,  not  in- 
cluding the  governor.  The  act  was  entitled  "  An  Act 
Concerning  Religion."  After  forbidding,  under  penalty 
of  death,  blasphemy  against  any  Person  of  the  Most  Hol\- 
Trinity,  and  making  reproachful  speeches  against  the  Vir- 
gin Mary,  the  apostles,  and  the  evangelists  punishable  by 
fme,  it  lays  penalties  upon  all  who  shall  call  others  reviling 


226  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

names,  such  as  "  heretic,  Puritan,  Jesuit,  papist,  and  the 
Hke,"  and  then  enacts:  "Whereas  the  enforcing  of  con- 
science in  matters  of  rehgion  hath  frequently  fallen  out  to 
be  of  dangerous  consequence,  and  the  better  to  preserve 
mutual  love  and  amity  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
colony,  no  person  professing  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  shall 
be  in  any  ways  troubled,  molested,  or  discountenanced  for 
or  in  respect  of  his  or  her  religion,  nor  in  the  free  exercise 
thereof."  Heavy  penalties  were  imposed  for  so  offending. 
Profanation  of  the  Sabbath  or  the  Lord's  day,  called  Sun- 
day, by  swearing,  drunkenness,  unnecessary  work,  or  dis- 
orderly recreation,  was  also  severely  forbidden. 

This  act  was  an  immense  advance  upon  the  practice  of 
the  age  both  in  Europe  and  in  the  English  colonies  of 
North  Airierica.  It  was  the  only  sensible  position  to  take 
in  a  province  inhabited  by  men  of  different  religious  creeds. 
The  evils  of  an  enforcement  of  any  one  creed,  under  such 
circumstances,  were  greater  than  the  evil  of  tolerating 
what  was  false ;  and,  like  a  practical  Englishman,  Lord 
Baltimore  chose  the  lesser  evil.  He  had  to  decide,  as  the 
responsible  head  of  a  mixed  community,  not  on  what  was 
best  in  theory,  but  on  what  was  practicable,  what  was 
in  practice  most  conduci\e  to  the  welfare  of  the  commu- 
nit\-.  He  was  the  first  to  establish  by  law  a  modus  vivendi 
between  conflicting  worships,  which  has  since  obtained  in 
all  civilized  countries  where  Christendom  is  divided.  He 
saw  that  the  means  of  healing  those  divisions  was  not  in 
the  civil  compulsion  in  favor  of  any  one  church.  What- 
ever we  may  think  should  have  been  the  proper  meais  of 
j)re\-enting  the  origin  and  early  propagation  of  novelties  in 
religion,  it  seems  certain  that,  once  they  ha\'e  gained  a 
solid  and  seemingly  permanent  foothold,  the  civil  enforce- 
ment of  any  one  favored  creed  as  against  all  others  can  be 
no  longer  the  efficacious  means  of  healing  the  divisions. 


ACT  OF   TOLERATION.  227 

This  act  was  no  novelty  in  the  policy  of  the  Baltimores ; 
it  was  but  the  legaHzing  of  a  system  followed  by  them 
from  the  foundation  of  the  colony  of  Avalon  in  New- 
foundland. The  oath  of  office  required  in  the  very 
beginning  of  the  colony  from  the  governors  ran  thus :  "  I 
do  further  swear  that  I  will  not  by  myself  or  any  other 
person,  directly  or  indirectly,  trouble,  molest,  or  discoun- 
tenance any  person  whatsoever,  professing  to  believe  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  in  particular  no  Roman  Catholic,  for  or 
in  respect  of  religion,  nor  his  or  her  free  exercise  thereof, 
within  the  said  province  ;  .  .  .  nor  will  I  make  any  differ- 
ence of  persons  in  conferring  offices,  rewards,  or  favors, 
for  or  in  respect  to  their  said  religion,  but  merely  as  I  shall 
find  them  faithful  and  well  deserving."  If  toleration  had 
not  been  embodied  heretofore  in  a  legislative  enactment 
of  the  province,  it  was  because  the  enactment  was  not 
needed ;  the  practice  of  the  proprietary,  the  governor,  and 
the  inhabitants,  while  Catholics  were  in  the  majority,  was 
always  against  persecution  and  in  favor  of  equal  liberty. 
That  fact  is  writ  large  in  the  history  of  the  first  fifteen 
years  of  Maryland;  the  admission  of  the  Puritans  from 
Virginia  proves  it.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  Baltimore, 
Catholic  though  he  was,  favored  the  Jesuits  beyond  meas- 
ure, since,  as  we  have  seen,  he  confined  them  within  the 
common  law  to  which  all  were  amenable,  and  curtailed 
their  ability  to  grow  wealthy.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that 
he  discriminated  against  Protestants,  since  he  nominated 
Stone  as  governor.  But  when  he  foresaw  that  in  the  near 
future  Protestantism  might  predominate  numerically  in 
the  colony  of  which  he  was  the  head,  he  resolved  to  make 
Protestantism  continue  his  policy  so  far  as  he  could  do 
so,  and  in  advance  bound  it  to  that  policy  by  fixing  in  a 
legislative  enactment  the  toleration  he  had  practiced  and 
enforced.     Alas !   the  barrier  he  had  then  set  up  against 


228  9^HE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

intolerance  proved  to  be  too  weak  for  the  violence  of 
fanaticism,  as  the  later  history  of  Maryland  too  sadly 
proves. 

While  securing  the  future  peace  of  the  Catholic  colo- 
nists, Lord  Baltimore  did  not  neglect  the  Indians.  In  165  i 
ten  thousand  acres  around  Calverton  Manor,  on  the 
Wicomico  River,  were  set  apart  as  a  reservation  for  the 
remnants  of  the  Maryland  native  tribes ;  and  the  dwellers 
in  that  reserve  were  instructed  and  ministered  to  by  Cath- 
olic clergymen.  If  Baltimore  was  first  in  religious  hberty, 
he  was  also  first  in  that  method  of  preserving  and  civiliz- 
ing the  Indian  which  is  now  the  policy  of  the  United  States 
government.  Very  soon  those  Indians  were  received  into 
civilized  life;  their  daughters  were  educated  and  fre- 
quently married  into  white  families.  The  blood  of  some 
of  the  chiefs  flows  to-day  in  the  veins  of  Maryland's  proud- 
est sons.  Only  a  few  full-blooded  Indians  are  to  be  found 
at  present  on  the  Piscataway  and  on  the  eastern  shore. 

This  peaceful  state  of  things  was  rudely  broken  by  an 
invasion  of  Claiborne  and  Bennett,  commissioners  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  England  for  Virginia,  who,  under  pre- 
text that  Maryland  was  royalist  and  disloyal  to  Cromwell's 
Protectorate,  undertook  a  second  time  to  end  Baltimore's 
rule  in  the  colony.  The  charge  was  false — Baltimore  had 
accepted  the  de  facto  government ;  but  the  inveterate 
hatred  of  Claiborne  blinded  him.  The  scenes  of  the 
former  raid  were  repeated,  and  the  Jesuits  were  forced  to 
seek  refuge  out  of  the  province.  An  Assembly  was  con- 
voked, from  which  all  Catholics  were  excluded.  The 
toleration  act  of  1649  was  repealed,  and  a  new  law  con- 
cerning religion  was  passed :  "  It  is  hereby  enacted  and 
declared  that  none  who  profess  and  exercise  the  popish, 
commonly  called  the  Roman  Catholic,  religion,  can  be 
protected  in  this  province  by  the  laws  of  England,  .   .   . 


INCREASE    OE  MISSIONARIES.  2  29 

but  are  to  be  restrained  from  the  exercise  thereof."  Gov- 
ernor Stone  ralHed  after  the  first  blow,  met  force  by  force, 
but  was  defeated  in  battle  on  the  Severn,  March  24,  1655, 
and  was  captured  and  thrown  into  prison  ;  four  of  his  chief 
followers  were  executed  in  cold  blood,  three  of  them  being 
Catholics. 

However,  in  1656  the  government  in  England,  coming 
to  see  the  injustice  done  to  Baltimore,  decided  for  him 
against  the  Virginia  commissioners.  Once  more  his  rights 
were  acknowledged ;  his  authority  was  restored,  and  all 
acts  passed  during  the  rebellion  were  annulled.  It  was 
agreed  with  the  home  government  that  the  toleration 
act  of  1649  was  to  be  made  perpetual,  and  a  general 
amnesty  to  all  who  had  taken  part  in  the  rebellion  was 
declared.  Baltimore  was  no  less  merciful  to  those  whom 
religious  prejudice  misled  than  he  was  tenacious  of  his 
rights  and  vigorous  in  defending  them ;  he  stands  out  as 
the  very  embodiment  of  American  fair  play. 

After  the  restoration  the  Jesuits  were  so  few  in  Mary- 
land for  many  years  as  to  be  unequal  to  the  task  of 
attending  to  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  Catholic  colonists, 
who  were  increasing  by  constant  immigration.  In  1669 
Lord  Baltimore  complained  to  Abbate  Claudius  Agretti, 
sent  from  Rome  to  England  on  some  ecclesiastical  busi- 
ness, that  there  were  only  two  priests  in  Maryland  to 
minister  to  two  thousand  Catholics,  and  that  for  the  last 
twenty-four  years  he  had  solicited  the  holy  see  in  vain  to 
send  other  missionaries  to  his  province.  Agretti  reported 
this  complaint  to  Propaganda;  the  internuncio  at  Brussels 
was  ordered  to  make  inquiry.  The  result  was  that  two 
Franciscans,  Father  Massey  and  an  associate,  were  sent 
to  found  a  mission  in  Maryland  ;  they  arrived,  apparently, 
in  1673.  We  cannot  tell  what  field  was  assigned  to  the 
newcomers;   but  in    1677    three   more   Franciscans   came 


230  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

and  three  more  Jesuits,  with  a  certain  number  of  lay 
brothers.  One  consequence  of  this  addition  to  the  mis- 
sionary force  of  the  colony  was  the  opening  of  a  school  of 
humanities  by  the  Jesuits,  in  which  the  sons  of  the  plant- 
ers were  given  a  liberal  education.  From  this  school 
many  of  them  passed  to  the  higher  institutions  of  Europe. 
With  the  increase  of  laborers  came  an  expansion  of  the 
field  of  labor ;  the  seaboard  settlements  north  of  Maryland 
were  claiming  their  attention  and  services. 

In  the  year  1634  a  grant  was  made  out  by  the  English 
crown  to  Sir  Edmund  Plowden,  a  Catholic  gentleman, 
erecting  into  a  county  palatine,  under  the  name  of  New 
Albion,  lands  on  the  Hudson  and  Delaware,  including 
what  are  now  known  as  Long  Island  and  New  Jersey.  His 
object,  probably,  was  to  found  a  refuge  for  oppressed 
Catholics ;  but  no  permanent  settlement  was  made  under 
this  grant.  After  the  Duke  of  York  came  into  possession 
of  New  Netherland  (now  New  York),  he  conveyed  a  part 
of  his  territory,  in  what  is  now  New  Jersey,  to  the  Cath- 
olic Earl  of  Perth.  But  there  was  no  serious  attempt 
made  to  found  any  settlement  under  this  conveyance. 
However,  Catholic  individuals  gradually  found  their  way 
into  the  colonies  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey ;  for  in- 
stance, Anthony  Brockholls  (1674),  who  was  second  in 
authority  to  Governor  Andros;  Lieutenant  Jervis  Baxter, 
one  of  the  oldest  officials  of  the  colony ;  and  William 
Douglas,  who,  in  1680,  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  of  New  Jersey,  but  was  not  admitted  by  that 
body,  "  the  aforesaid  member  upon  examination  owning 
himself  to  be  a  Roman  Catholic."  In  1682  the  governor 
of  New  York  was  a  Catholic  and  an  Irishman,  Colonel 
Thomas  Dongan.  He  was  accompanied  from  England  by 
the  Jesuit  father  Thomas  Harvey.  In  connection  with  the 
departure  of  Harvey  for  America,  the  English  provincial, 


THE  JESUITS  IN  NEW   YORK.  23  I 

Father  Warner,  writes  to  the  general,  February  26,  1683  : 
"  Father  Thomas  Harvey,  the  missioner,  passes  to  New 
York  by  consent  of  the  governor  of  the  colony.  In  that 
colony  is  a  respectable  city,  fit  for  the  foundation  of  a 
college,  if  faculties  are  given,  to  which  college  those  who 
are  now  scattered  throughout  Maryland  may  betake  them- 
selves and  make  excursions  from  thence  into  Maryland. 
The  Duke  of  York,  the  lord  of  that  colony,  greatly  en- 
courages the  undertaking"  of  a  new  mission."  Two  more 
fathers,  Harrison  and  Gage,  soon  joined  Father  Harvey. 
We  know  from  the  history  of  the  Iroquois  mission  that  it 
was  the  purpose  of  Dongan  to  drive  the  French  Jesuits 
from  northern  New  York  and  replace  them  with  English 
fathers,  though  the  purpose  was  never  realized. 

There  was  a  small  chapel  in  the  fort  south  of  Bowling 
Green ;  Dongan  kept  two  chaplains  there,  who  were  paid 
sixty  pounds  a  year.  There  was  a  Latin  school  kept  by 
the  Jesuits  on  the  neighboring  King's  Farm,  and  the  bell 
of  the  Dutch  chapel  in  the  fort  was  used  to  mark  the 
school  exercises.  In  the  first  legislative  Assembly  in  New 
York  (October  17,  1683)  under  Dongan's  administration 
it  was  enacted  "  that  no  person  or  persons  which  profess 
faith  in  God  by  Jesus  Christ  shall  at  any  time  be  anyways 
molested,  punished,  disquieted,  or  called  in  question  for 
any  difference  of  opinions,  or  matter  of  religious  concern- 
ment, who  do  not  actually  disturb  the  civil  peace  of  the 
province."  The  Christian  churches  were  to  "  be  held  and 
reputed  as  privileged  churches,  and  enjoy  all  their  former 
freedoms  of  their  religion  in  divine  worship  and  church 
discipline."  It  was  this  religious  freedom,  doubtless,  that 
gave  the  Jesuits  hopes  of  success  in  their  missionary  and 
educational  work  in  New  York. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1681,  Charles  II.  granted  to  the 
son  of  Admiral  Penn,  for  the  canceling  of  a  debt,  a  terri- 


232  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xv. 

tory  in  America  extending  five  degrees  westward  from  the 
Delaware  River,  with  a  width  of  three  degrees.  This 
stretch  of  country  (now  Pennsylvania)  was  already  occu- 
pied by  Dutch  Calvinists,  Swedish  Lutherans,  and  a  few 
Catholics,  and  was  about  to  receive  a  large  body  of  Quak- 
ers, to  which  sect  Penn  belonged.  Here,  also,  liberty  of 
worship  was  enacted :  "  All  persons  living  in  the  prov- 
ince who  confess  and  acknowledge  the  One  Almighty  and 
Eternal  God  to  be  the  Creator,  Upholder,  and  Ruler  of 
the  World,  and  that  hold  themselves  obliged  in  conscience 
to  live  peaceably  and  justly  in  civil  society,  shall  in  no 
way  be  molested  br  prejudiced  for  their  religious  persua- 
.sion,  or  practice  in  matters  of  faith  and  worship,  nor  shall 
they  be  compelled  at  any  time  to  frequent  or  maintain  any 
religious  worship,  place,  or  ministry  whatever."  Knowing 
for  certain  that  Jesuits  passed  to  and  fro  between  New 
York  and  Maryland,  we  may  conjecture  that  they  visited 
occasionally  such  Catholics  as  they  met  in  Pennsylvania 
and  New  Jersey;  but  we  have  no  certain  records  of  the 
condition  or  number  of  Catholics  in  those  two  States  at 
that  early  day. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  James  II.,  in  the  year  1685,  that 
England  received  the  first  Catholic  bishop  since  Elizabeth's 
reign,  Dr.  John  Leyburn,  Vicar  Apostolic  of  all  England. 
Three  years  afterward  the  island  was  divided  ecclesias- 
tically into  four  districts:  the  London,  the  Western,  the 
Midland,  the  Northern.  The  Catholics  of  America  and 
their  clergy  were  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  incumbent 
of  the  London  district  from  this  period  down  to  the 
appointment  of  the  Rev.  John  Carroll  as  prefect  apostolic 
in  the  United  States  in  1784.  The  political  and  religious 
situation  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  was  full  of  promise : 
Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  were  animated  by  the 
same  spirit  of  religious  freedom  ;  the  king  was  Catholic ; 


THE  DOOM   OF  RKIJGIOCS  LIBERTY.  23,^ 

the  governors  of  these  provinces  were  not  hostile ;  episco- 
pal supervision,  though  distant,  was  an  augury  of  order 
and  vitality.  Yet  the  progress  of  the  church  in  Maryland 
during  this  period  of  quiet  was  astonishingly  slow ;  the 
Franciscans  were  few — not  more  than  four  at  any  time — 
and  the  Jesuits  were  thinking  of  transferring  their  center  of 
work  from  Maryland  to  New  York.  But  the  prospect  soon 
lost  all  brightness,  and  gloom  lowered  on  the  nascent 
Catholicity  of  the  central  colonies.  James  II.  was  over- 
thrown, William  of  Orange  came  in  {1689).  At  once 
Leisler  seized  the  government  of  New  York,  and  Coode 
that  of  Maryland  ;  religious  liberty  was  doomed  to  extinc- 
tion, and  Catholic  missionaries  to  persecution ;  of  all  the 
colonies  Pennsylvania  alone  remained  steadfastly  true  to 
her  original  policy  of  toleration. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

THE     PENAL     PERIOD. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  Coode,  the  usurper  of  Mary- 
land, was  to  hold  a  convention  for  the  defense  of  the 
Protestant  religion.  "  Chapels  and  churches,"  he  writes 
to  the  king-,  "  were  erected  for  the  use  of  popish  idolatry 
and  superstition  ;  Jesuits  and  seminary  priests  are  the  only 
incumbents ;  several  children  of  Protestants  have  been  com- 
mitted to  the  tutelage  of  papists ;  Jesuit  priests  and  lay 
papists  use  every  means  that  art  or  malice  can  suggest 
to  divert  the  obedience  and  loyalty  of  the  inhabitants  from 
their  most  Sacred  Majestys,  and  pray  for  the  success  of 
the  popish  forces  in  Ireland  and  the  French  designs 
against  England."  Glad  of  the  opportunity,  and  having 
for  policy  to  bring  the  colonies  under  the  direct  action  of 
the  crown,  William,  the  king  of  England,  ignored  the 
rights  of  the  lord  proprietary,  declared  Maryland  a  royal 
province,  and  sent  out  Sir  Lionel  Copley  as  royal  governor 
in  1 69 1.  He  at  once  convened  a  legislative  Assembly 
from  which  Catholics  were  excluded,  and  passed  an  "  Act 
for  the  service  of  Almighty  God  and  the  establishment  of 
the  Protestant  religion  in  this  province."  The  province 
was  divided  into  AngHcan  parishes,  though  there  were  no 
clergymen  to  take  charge  of  them,  vestrymen  were  ap- 
pointed, and  all  the  inhabitants  were  taxed  annually  forty 
pounds  of  tobacco  for  the  building  of  Episcopal  churches 
and  the  maintenance  of  Episcopal  ministers.     Thus  Cath- 

234 


Penal  legislation.  235 

oHcs,  for  nearly  a  century  thereafter,  were  compelled   to 
support  a  ministry  that  was  not  theirs. 

The  province,  at  the  time,  contained  a  population  of  t 
twenty- five  thousand,  the  majority  of  whom  were  Protest- 1 
ants,  but  not  Episcopalians.  The  seat  of  government  was  ' 
transferred  from  St.  Mary's,  mainly  because  it  was  the 
stronghold  of  Catholicity,  and  henceforward  that  original 
settlement  of  the  Maryland  pilgrims  declined,  until  noth- 
ing now  remains  to  mark  the  spot  but  a  few  ruins  and  a 
Protestant  church  built  at  Catholic  expense  out  of  the  ma- 
terials of  the  first  Catholic  church  in  the  province.  A  cen- 
sus made  in  1696-97  shows  two  priests,  one  lay  brother, 
and  four  chapels  in  St.  Mary's  County;  three  priests,  one 
lay  brother,  and  four  chapels  in  Charles  County ;  one 
chapel,  with  no  resident  priest,  in  Talbot  County.  So 
high  ran  hostility  to  the  Catholics  that  the  devotedness  of 
the  priests  during  a  pestilence  in  1697  was  turned  into  a 
reproach.  It  appears  that  their  attendance  on  the  sick  of 
all  denominations  had  won  some  Protestants  over  to  the 
church.  An  Episcopal  minister  complained  of  this  result 
of  their  heroic  conduct  to  the  governor  and  legislature, 
and  that  body  considered  the  propriety  of  passing  a  law 
"  to  restrain  such  presumption  "  !  A  rivalry  of  self-sacri- 
fice, one  should  think,  would  have  been  the  proper  remedy. 
They  dared  not,  however,  pass  such  a  law,  but  salved  their 
conscience  by  enacting,  in  i  700,  that  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  should  be  used  exclusively  in  every  church  and 
place  of  public  worship. 

So  far  those  penal  laws  bore  equally  on  all  denomina- 
tions other  than  the  Episcopal ;  but  in  i  702  toleration  was 
extended  to  all  Protestant  dissenters  ;  Catholics  alone  were 
outlawed  and  bore  the  burden  of  persecution.  Father 
Hunter,  in  i  704,  for  having  dedicated  a  new  chapel,  and 
celebrated  mass  in  the  old  St.  Mary's  chapel,  was  sum- 


236  rilE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xvi, 

moned  before  the  governor  and  his  council,  received  a 
severe  and  insolent  reprimand,  and  was  threatened  with 
direr  punishment  if  he  should  fall  into  the  same  misde- 
meanor again.  St.  Mary's  chapel  was  ordered  to  be 
locked  up  by  the  sheriff,  and  the  key  thereof  to  remain  in 
the  possession  of  that  official.  In  October,  1 704,  the  legis- 
lature passed  an  "  Act  to  prevent  the  growth  of  popery 
within  this  province."  Whoever  should  baptize  a  child 
not  of  Catholic  parents,  should  say  mass  or  exercise  any 
ecclesiastical  function,  should  endeavor  to  induce  any  of 
his  Majesty's  subjects  to  come  back  to  or  enter  into  the 
Catholic  Church,  was  to  be  fined  fifty  pounds  and  impris- 
oned for  six  months.  A  repetition  of  the  offense  entailed 
transportation  to  England,  to  be  dealt  with  there  accord- 
ing to  the  rigor  of  the  laws  against  popery.  The  same 
penalty  was  decreed  against  any  Catholic  keeping  school, 
or  educating,  governing,  or  boarding  youth.  The  act 
further  provided  that  if  any  popish  youth  shall  not,  within 
six  months  after  he  attains  his  majority,  take  the  oaths 
prescribed — oaths  no  Catholic  in  conscience  could  take — 
he  shall  be  incapable  of  holding  lands  by  descent,  and  his 
next  of  kin,  if  Protestant,  shall  succeed  him ;  that  any 
Catholic  shall  be  incompetent  to  purchase  lands;  that  any 
Catholic  sending  his  child  abroad  to  be  educated  in  the 
Catholic  faith  shall  forfeit  one  hundred  pounds.  And 
better  to  prevent  the  growth  of  popery,  an  act  of  the  same 
year  imposed  a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  on  any  one  who 
brought  in  an  Irish  papist  to  till  the  soil  of  Maryland. 

This  inhuman  legislation  has  been  branded  as  infamous 
by  all  the  historians  of  Maryland.  It  was  the  act  not  so 
much  of  the  legislature  as  of  the  fanatical  Governor  Sey- 
mour, who  was  incensed  at  the  Catholics  for  refusing  to 
make  up  a  purse  for  him.  The  Protestant  colonists  them- 
selves, be  it  said  to  their  credit,  were  not  prepared  to  go 


APOSTASY  OF   THE  HOUSE   OF  BALTIMORE.        237 

this  length  of  persecution  ;  the  legislature  declared  the  law 
suspended  for  eighteen  months,  and  Queen  Anne  abro- 
gated it  in  1705.  In  1708  the  sheriffs  of  the  counties 
were  required  to  report  the  number  of  Catholics  in  the 
province.  In  a  population  of  over  forty  thousand  only 
2974  Catholics  were  found,  nearly  one  half  of  them  in  St. 
Mary's  County,  seven  hundred  in  Charles  County.  The) 
were  in  the  care  of  five  Jesuit  fathers.  The  abrogation 
by  Queen  Anne  of  the  frightful  penal  legislation  noticed 
above  implied  the  permission  for  Catholics  to  hold  di\'ine 
service  in  private  oratories.  The  residences  of  the  Jesuits 
on  their  plantations,  and  the  manor-houses  of  a  few  wealthy 
Catholics — such,  for  instance,  as  the  Carroll  mansion  at 
Doughoregan  Manor — were  arranged  with  a  view  to  this 
purpose.  It  was  in  this  private,  not  to  say  secret,  fashion 
that  Catholicity  was  preserved  in  Maryland  during  many 
generations. 

A  sad  blow  fell  on  the  few  Catholics  of  the  colony  in 
I  713.  In  order  to  regain  personal  control  of  the  province, 
Benedict  Leonard  Calvert,  heir  to  the  House  of  Baltimore, 
renounced  the  religion  of  his  ancestors.  Apostasy  was 
the  price  at  which  England  was  willing  to  restore  pro- 
prietary rights  to  the  family  that  had  founded  the  colony. 
Henceforth  the  scions  of  the  House  of  Baltimore  were 
brought  up  in  Protestantism.  Naturally  the  influence  of 
this  example  was  great,  and  many  of  the  wealthy  Catholic 
planters  followed  it.  Further  penal  laws  fostered  apostasy. 
In  1 7 16  oaths  against  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope  and 
against  belief  in  transubstantiation  were  demanded  from 
all  who  would  hold  office ;  to  join  in  the  service  of  the 
mass  or  receive  communion  was  to  forfeit  office  and  be- 
come disqualified  for  election  to  any  political  position.  In 
the  same  year  a  fine  of  twenty  shillings  was  imposed  on  the 
importation  of  any  Irish  papist  servant,  and  the  following 


238  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  yCww.  \\\. 

year  the  fine  was  doubled.  More  than  that,  Cathohcs  were 
deprived  not  only  of  office,  but  also  of  suffrage.  "  And 
whereas,  notwithstanding  all  the  measures  that  have  been 
hitherto  taken  for  preventing  the  growth  of  popery,  it  is 
obvious  that  not  onl}-  professed  papists  still  multiply  and 
increase  in  number,  but  that  there  are  also  too  great  num- 
bers of  them  that  adhere  to  and  espouse  their  interest  in 
opposition  to  the  Protestant  establishment,  it  is  enacted 
that  all  professed  papists  whatsoever  be  and  are  hereby 
declared  incapable  of  giving  their  vote  in  any  election  of  a 
delegate  or  delegates." 

Yes,  the  papists  seemed  to  thrive  on  persecution.  Gov- 
ernor Hart,  about  this  time,  wrote  to  Bishop  Robinson,  of 
London :  "  The  advantage  which  the  Jesuits  have  from 
their  [the  Anglican  ministers  in  Maryland]  negligence  is 
but  too  evident  in  the  many  proselytes  they  make;"  and 
the  same  governor,  addressing  the  Anglican  clergy  in 
1718,  expressed  his  great  regret  that  the  Jesuits  were 
gaining  proselytes,  and  the  assembled  ministers  admitted 
the  fact.  They  had  a  foothold  in  the  capital,  Annapolis ; 
for  in  I  720  the  Carrolls  had  a  mansion  there  and  kept  a 
Catholic  chaplain.  Charles  Carroll  was,  in  spite  of  his 
steadfast  attachment  to  the  faith,  the  recognized  agent  of 
Lord  Baltimore  in  the  province  ;  as  such  he  was  considered 
privileged  from  the  penal  laws.  The  number  of  the  Jesu- 
its had  increased  to  twelve  by  the  year  1723;  they  were 
in  exclusive  control  of  the  missions  of  Maryland  and 
neighboring  colonies,  the  Franciscans  having  withdrawn 
from  the  field  in  1720. 

The  colony  of  Pennsylvania  did  not  go  into  the  perse- 
cutions that  were  rampant  in  the  other  colonies.  This 
liberality  induced  the  Jesuits  to  establish  themselves  on 
the  borders  of  Penn's  territory.  In  i  706  they  acquired 
an  estate  on  the  Little  and  Great  Bohemia  rivers,  Cecil 


PENAL   LAWS  IN   VIRGINIA.  239 

County,  known  as  St.  Xavier's  Residence  on  the  Eastern 
Shore.  This  became  the  center  of  their  excursions  into 
Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  as  well  as  into  Maryland. 
And  here,  in  1745,  they  established  a  classical  school. 
Among  its  earliest  pupils  were  Benedict  and  Edward 
Neale,  James  Heath,  Robert  Brent,  Charles  Carroll — he 
of  Carrollton — and  John  Carroll,  the  future  Archbishop  of 
Baltimore.  This  school  was  a  great  success  at  the  time, 
and  called  forth  the  jealousy  and  anger  of  the  Protestant 
ministry  of  the  province. 

In  strong  contrast  to  Pennsylvania  stands  the  'colony  of 
Virginia.  A  few  Catholic  families  had  gone  over  the  bor- 
der to  the  southern  shore  of  the  Potomac  at  Aquia  Creek, 
Virginia,  and  priests  paid  them  occasional  visits.  This  in- 
trusion called  for  a  series  of  penal  laws  in  the  legislation  of 
that  State,  the  equal  of  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  history. 
No  Catholic  could  hold  office,  under  a  fine  of  a  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco;  no  priest  was  allowed  in  the  colony; 
all  settlers  were  required  by  law  to  attend  the  services  of 
the  Estabhshed  Church,  under  a  penalty  of  twenty  pounds  ; 
Catholics  were  deprived  of  suffrage ;  an  attempt  to  vote 
by  a  Catholic  was  fined  five  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco ; 
Catholics  were  incompetent  as  witnesses  before  the  tri- 
bunals against  black  or  white.  The  Catholic  was  less  than 
the  negro ! 

The  persecution  in  Maryland,  the  details  of  which  would 
take  up  too  much  space,  grew  in  severity  until  the  Catholic 
colonists  were  compelled  in  self-defense  to  appeal  to  the 
English  throne ;  and  this  only  a  quarter  of  a  century  be- 
fore the  American  Revolution!  Catholics  were  crushed 
under  double  taxation.  Every  now  and  then  newspapers 
and  pamphlets  would  call  attention  to  their  growing  num- 
bers, the  increase  of  their  wealth  in  land,  and  their  schools, 
as  a  menace  to  the  province.      Matters  went  so  far  that 


240  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvi. 

the  idea  of  emigrating  to  Louisiana  was  seriously  consid- 
ered by  some  of  the  wealthiest  among  the  Catholic  plant- 
ers. It  seemed  to  be  the  public  theory  or  dread  that, 
whenever  the  colonies  got  into  any  difficulty  or  war  with 
France,  the  small  body  of  Catholics  in  Maryland  were 
ready  to  help  the  French  side ;  whereas  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  there  was  the  least  disloyalty  to  England  among 
them,  and  there  is  every  evidence  that  they  cheerfully 
bore  their  just  proportion  of  taxation,  and  took  up  arms  in 
defense  of  England's  rights.  But  their  Protestant  rulers 
were  not  satisfied  with  a  just  proportion.  Not  only  were 
Catholics  obliged  to  pay  their  forty  pounds  of  tobacco 
annually  to  the  Episcopal  Church,  but  in  times  of  war 
they  were  taxed  double  the  sum  their  non- Catholic  neigh- 
bors had  to  pay. 

The  temper  of  the  times  was  clearly  shown  in  the  in- 
human treatment  dealt  out  to  the  transported  Acadians. 
It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  tell  the 
story  of  Acadia's  settlement,  of  its  growth,  and  of  its  sub- 
sequent conquest  by  England.  After  the  war  between 
England  and  France  that  was  ended  by  the  Treaty  of  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  (1748),  the  English  authorities  decided  to  ex- 
patriate the  Acadians.  Their  hcxnes  were  ruined,  and  seven 
thousand  of  them — all  Catholics — were  scattered  from 
Massachusetts  to  Georgia ;  in  many  cases  husbands  were 
separated  from  wives,  and  parents  from  children.  A  few 
were  able  to  make  their  escape  to  the  French  colonies  of 
the  South  and  North ;  the  great  majority  were  absorbed  into 
various  English  colonies,  where  they  lost  their  nationality, 
their  language,  and  their  faith.  Nine  hundred  of  these 
unfortunates  were  landed  in  Maryland.  An  order  was 
issued  forbidding  the  Catholics  of  the  province  to  receive 
the  Acadians  in  their  homes ;  petitions  were  gotten  up  to 
send  them  once  more  adrift.     However,  those  who  arrived 


B£GI^'^'J^'us  of  Baltimore.  241 

in  Baltimore  met  with  kindly  people  who  gave  them  hos- 
pitality, and  were  consoled  by  the  ministrations  of  Father 
Ashton,  chaplain  of  the  Carrolls  at  Doughoregan,  who 
came  occasionally  to  Baltimore  to  hold  services  in  a  private 
house.  The  first  congregation  of  that  city,  the  seat  of 
America's  cardinal,  the  metropolis  of  the  Catholic  Chunh 
in  the  United  States,  was  composed,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  of  not  more  than  forty  families,  mostly 
Acadian  refugees. 

The  city's  beginnings  were  laid  in  the  year  1729. 
Maryland  had  never  taken  kindly  to  towns.  The  water- 
ways of  the  region,  making  each  plantation  a  port,  so  to 
speak,  did  away  with  the  necessity  of  any  great  centers. 
St.  Mary's  and  Annapolis  were  the  only  real  towns  for  a 
hundred  years,  and  they  were  rather  political  than  com- 
mercial centers.  About  the  year  i  729  the  planters  on  the 
Patapsco,  feeling  the  need  of  a  convenient  port,  purchased 
of  Daniel  and  Charles  Carroll  sixty  acres,  bounding  on  the 
northern  branch  of  the  river,  in  that  part  of  the  harbor 
now  called  the  Basin,  and  laid  out  a  town.  The  position 
had  many  advantages,  yet  it  grew  slowly ;  after  twenty 
years  it  had  about  twenty  dwellings  and  perhaps  one 
hundred  inhabitants.  The  Catholic  Church  began  its  ex- 
istence there  when  Father  Ashton  commenced  his  visits  to 
the  Acadian  refugees  and  a  few  Irish,  holding  services  in 
the  house  of  Edward  Fotteral,  an  Irish  merchant,  the  first 
brick  structure  in  Baltimore,  at  the  northwest  corner  of 
Fayette  and  Calvert  streets. 

About  the  year  1755  there  were  fourteen  fathers  on  the 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  missions ;  the  total  Catholic 
population  was  about  ten  thousand.  "  Each  father,"  states 
a  document  of  that  time,  "  holds  services  at  home  in  his 
residence  two  Sundays  in  the  month  ;  the  other  Sundays 
he  is  in  other  stations,     The  extent  of  their  excursions  is 


242  THE  KOMAX  CA  TIIOLICS.  [Chap.  xvi. 

about  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  long  by  thirty- 
five  broad.  Our  journeys  are  very  long,  our  rides  con- 
stant and  extensive.  We  have  many  to  attend  to  and  few 
to  attend  those  many.  I  often  ride  about  three  hundred 
miles  a  week,  and  in  our  way  of  hving  we  ride  almost  as 
much  by  night  as  by  day,  in  all  weathers."  The  resi- 
dences from  which  the  fathers  attended  their  scattered 
flocks  were  :  St.  Inigoes,  one  missionary ;  St.  Xavier's  at 
Newtown,  three  missionaries  ;  St.  Ignatius'  at  Port  Tobacco, 
three  missionaries  ;  St.  Francis  Borgia  at  Whitemarsh,  two 
missionaries ;  St.  Joseph's  at  Deer  Creek,  one  missionary  ; 
St.  Stanislaus'  at  Fredericktown,  one  missionary  ;  St.  Mary's 
at  Queenstown  or  Tuckahoe,  one  missionary  ;  St.  Xavier's 
at  Bohemia,  one  missionary  ;  St.  Joseph's  at  Philadelphia, 
two  missionaries  ;  St.  Paul's  at  Goshenhoppen,  one  mission- 
ary ;  St.  John  Nepomucene  at  Lancaster,  one  missionary ; 
St.  Francis  Regis  at  Conewago,  one  missionary. 

The  Jesuit  estates  not  only  supported  the  missionaries 
and  defrayed  all  the  expenses  of  divine  service  throughout 
the  colony,  but  also  enabled  them  to  pay  the  passage  of 
the  fathers  that  came  from  and  returned  to  England. 
Time  and  again  it  was  mooted  in  the  legislature  and  the 
press  during  the  penal  period  to  confiscate  the  property 
of  the  Jesuits;  it  was  well  understood  that  this  would  be 
the  best  means  of  suppressing  at  one  blow  Catholic  wor- 
ship in  Maryland.  The  services  were  of  the  plainest — no 
pomp  whatever,  and  in  most  cases  no  music.  Cemeteries 
were  on  the  priests'  farms  or  the  private  plantations  of  the 
wealthiest  colonists.  The  whole  Catholic  population  could 
not  hear  mass  on  every  Sunday  and  holy  day.  It  was 
evident  that  under  such  circumstances  faith  could  not  be 
of  the  liveliest.  At  any  rate,  there  was  lacking  one  stim- 
ulant that  experience  has  proved  to  be  of  the  utmost 
service  in  keeping  men  interested  and  steadfast   in  their 


PENAL   LAW  IN  NEW    YORK.  243 

religious  convictions — the  Catholics  of  Maryland  did  not 
contribute  of  their  means  to  their  church.  Neither  did 
the  clergy  take  in  the  lives  of  their  flocks  that  deep  part, 
and  in  their  hearts  that  warm  attachment,  which  are 
created  only  by  a  community  of  temporal  as  well  as  spir- 
itual interests,  by  the  voluntary  and  generous  support  of 
the  pastor  by  the  flock. 

The  penal  period  began  in  New  York  in  i  700.  Then 
the  Earl  of  Bellomont,  governor  of  New  York,  succeedeci 
in  having  an  act  of  intoleration  passed  through  the  legis- 
lature of  that  colony.  "  Whereas  divers  Jesuits,  priests, 
and  popish  missionaries  have  of  late  come,  and  for  some 
time  have  had  their  residence  in  remote  parts  of  this 
province,  who  by  their  wicked  and  subtle  insinuations  in- 
dustriously labor  to  debauch,  seduce,  and  withdraw  the 
Indians  from  due  obedience  to  His  Most  Sacred  Majesty, 
and  to  excite  and  stir  them  up  to  sedition,  rebellion,  and 
open  hostility  against  His  Majesty's  government  " — so  ran 
the  preamble  aimed  at  the  French  missionaries  among  the 
Iroquois.  Now  the  Iroquois  were  not  subjects  of  the  king 
of  England  either  in  the  estimation  of  Canada  or  in  their 
own.  The  history  of  the  Iroquois  mission  gives  the  lie  to 
the  above  indictment.  The  law  goes  on  to  declare  that 
every  priest  remaining  in  the  province  after  its  passage 
"shall  be  deemed  and  accounted  an  incendiary  and  dis- 
turber of  the  public  peace  and  safety,  and  an  enemy  to  the 
true  Christian  religion,  and  shall  be  adjudged  to  suffer 
perpetual  banishment."  Any  priest  imprisoned  under  the 
act  who  escaped  from  his  prison  was  liable  to  the  penalty 
of  death  if  recaptured.  To  harbor  a  priest  was  to  incur  a 
fine  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  and  stand  in  the 
pillory  three  days.  The  next  year  papists  and  popish 
recusants  were  prohibited  from  voting  for  members  of  the 
Assembly  or  any  office  whatever.     Needless  to  describe 


244  ^'•^^^'   ^^'<^^^l/-/^V   CATHOLICS.  [Chai-.  \vj. 

in  detail  the  legislation  of  a  like  nature  that  was  enacted 
in  Massachusetts  and  the  other  Northern  colonies. 

On  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary  to  the  throne  of 
England  it  became  necessary  for  Penn  to  be  prudent  and 
cautious  in  allowing  the  religious  toleration  that  had  been 
the  first  enactment  of  his  colony  of  Pennsylvania.  The 
penal  laws  of  England  were  ever  repugnant  to  the  spirit 
of  Penn's  colonists,  and  in  reality  were  never  enforced  in 
Pennsylvania.  In  fact,  the  Charter  of  Liberty  and  Privi- 
leges of  October  28,  1701,  reaffirmed  liberty  civil  and 
religious  for  all  who  professed  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ; 
no  specified  exception  was  made  for  Catholics.  As  a 
result,  Pennsylvania,  of  all  the  colonies,  became  the  most 
favorable  and  safest  field  for  priests  and  missionaries,  and 
Catholic  settlers  began  early  to  make  their  homes  there. 
In  1 708  complaints  were  sent  to  the  home  government 
that  many  conversions  were  taking  place  and  that  mass 
was  publicly  celebrated  in  Philadelphia.  This  was  made 
a  subject  of  accusation  against  Penn,  who  wrote  from 
England  to  his  representative  in  the  colony,  Logan  :  "  Here 
is  a  complaint  against  your  government  that  you  suffer 
public  mass  in  a  scandalous  manner."  It  is  not  known 
where,  precisely,  mass  was  said,  nor  by  whom. 

The  first  recorded  appearance  of  any  priest  in  Pennsyl- 
vania was  that  of  Father  Greaton,  and  his  name  does  not 
appear  on  the  Maryland  mission  record  until  1721.  It 
was  from  the  residence  at  Bohemia,  founded  in  i  706,  that 
the  Jesuits  made  excursions  into  Delaware,  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  and  New  York.  There  is  authority  for  the 
statement  that,  soon  after  the  foundation  of  the  Bohemia 
residence,  Catholicity  was  first  established  in  Delaware  by 
the  foundation  of  a  mission  at  Apoquinimink  ;  that  in  1729 
there  was  a  Catholic  chapel  near  the  city  of  Philadelphia, 
connected  with  the  house  of  Elizabeth  McGawley,  an  Irish 


MISS/OXS   OUT   OF  JMARVLAXD.  245 

lady  who  had  brought  over  a  number  of  tenants  and  set- 
tled on  land  near  the  road  leading  from  Nicetown  to  Frank- 
fort ;  that  as  early  as  i  744  Father  Schneider  visited  some 
Catholics  near  Frankfort  and  Germantown.  It  is  claimed, 
also,  that  mass  was  said  about  1730  in  the  residence  of 
Thomas  Willcox,  at  Toy  Mills,  Delaware  County.  When 
the  Rev.  John  Carroll  was  appointed  prefect  apostolic  in 
the  United  States,  he  sent  to  the  Propaganda  an  account 
of  Catholicity  in  his  district.  From  this  we  learn  that 
about  1730  Father  Greaton,  a  Jesuit  from  Maryland,  laid 
the  foundations  of  a  congregation  in  Philadelphia,  built  a 
chapel  (St.  Joseph's),  and  lived  there  until  1750;  that  by 
the  year  1741  Catholic  German  emigrants  had  com.e  into 
Pennsylvania,  and  that  two  German  Jesuits  were  sent  to 
attend  to  them.  Father  Wapeler  founded  the  congrega- 
tion of  Conewago ;  Father  Schneider  founded  many  con- 
gregations, and  notably  that  of  Goshenhoppen,  where  a 
church  was  built  by  his  exertions. 

The  Germans  in  Philadelphia  had  not,  as  yet,  a  resident 
clergyman,  and  received  only  occasional  visits ;  but  their 
number  increased  so  rapidly  that  by  the  year  1760  P^ather 
Farmer  fixed  his  residence  among  them.  Because  of  this 
considerable  German  immigration,  Pennsylvania  became  a 
mission  district  independent  of  Maryland,  with  a  superior 
of  its  own,  in  i  740.  From  this  new  center  the  feeble  and 
few  missions  in  Delaware  and  New  Jersey  were  cared  for. 
As  to  New  York,  it  may  be  said  that  at  this  time  it  had 
no  Catholics,  though  occasionally  there  might  be  found  an 
individual  member  of  the  church,  as,  for  instance,  one 
Leary,  who  about  the  year  1 740  kept  a  livery-stable  in 
Cortlandt  Street,  and  imported  horses  for  the  officers  and 
others.  New  England,  of  course,  was  completely  barred 
to  Catholics  by  a  legislature  more  severe  than  that  of  New 
York.      In  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  there  were  none  at 


246  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvi. 

all  as  far  as  we  know.  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  were 
the  only  colonies  in  whieh  Catholics  were  to  be  found,  with 
a  few  in  New  Jersey  and  Delaware  and  northern  Virginia. 
An  inquiry  instituted  by  Lord  Loudon  in  1/57  gives  the 
Catholic  population  of  Pennsylvania  as  1375,  located  in 
Philadelphia,  Chester  County,  Goshenhoppen,  Berks, 
Northampton,  and  Bucks  counties,  Lancaster,  and  Cone- 
wago. 

Bishop  Challoner,  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London,  in  a 
report  to  the  Propaganda  (1756),  says:  "There  are  no 
missions  in  any  of  our  colonies  except  Maryland  and 
Pennsylvania.  Of  the  number  of  Catholics  I  have  had  va- 
rious accounts.  By  one  account  they  were  about  four 
thousand  communicants ;  another  makes  them  amount  to 
seven  thousand.  There  are  twelve  missionaries  in  Mary- 
land and  four  in  Pennsylvania,  all  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
These  also  assist  some  few  Catholics  in  Virginia  upon  the 
borders  of  Maryland,  and  in  New  Jersey  bordering  upon 
Pennsylvania.  As  to  the  rest  of  the  provinces — New 
England,  New  York,  etc. — if  there  be  any  straggling  Cath- 
olics, they  can  have  no  exercise  of  their  religion,  as  no 
priest  ever  comes  near  them."  We  have  the  following 
account  of  the  financial  condition  of  the  Jesuit  missions 
about  the  year  1 765  :  St.  Inigoes,  a  plantation  of  2000 
acres,  revenue  90  pounds;  St.  Xavier's,  1500  acres,  rev- 
enue 88  pounds ;  St.  Ignatius,  Port  Tobacco,  4400  acres, 
revenue  188  pounds  sterling;  St.  Francis  Borgia,  White 
Mar.sh,  3500  acres,  revenue  180  pounds;  St.  Joseph's, 
Deer  Creek,  127  acres,  revenue  24  pounds;  St.  Mary's, 
Tuckahoe,  200  acres,  revenue  18  pounds;  Bohemia,  1500 
acres,  revenue  108  pounds;  Goshenhoppen,  500  acres, 
revenue  45  pounds;  Conewago,  120  acres,  revenue  20 
pounds;  moreover,  about  100  pounds  received  annually 
from  London:  total,  13,220  acres,  revenue  861  pounds. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE    DAWN    OF    LIBERTY. 

The  missionaries  in  Maryland  and  the  English  colonies 
got  their  jurisdiction  from  ecclesiastical  superiors  in  Eng- 
land;  at  first  the  archpriests,  later  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of 
London.  This  arrangement  was  based  rather  on  common 
law  than  on  any  formal  document.  The  first  authoritative 
act  in  the  matter  dates  from  January,  i  757,  when  Benedict 
XIV.  gave  to  Bishop  Petre,  then  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Lon- 
don, jurisdiction  for  six  years  over  all  the  colonies  and 
islands  in  America  subject  to  the  British  empire.  The 
same  grant  was  renewed  March  3,  1759,  for  six  years 
more,  to  Bishop  Challoner.  It  was  evident  that  this 
arrangement  was  most  inconvenient.  Bishop  Challoner 
represented  to  the  Propaganda  that,  on  account  of  tlie 
distance,  he  could  not  visit  those  parts  in  person;  that  he 
could  not  have  the  necessary  information  to  know  and 
correct  abuses  ;  that  he  could  not  provide  the  colonies  will; 
a  diocesan  clergy  for  want  of  funds  ;  that  the  faithful  there 
lived  and  died  without  confirmation.  For  these  reasons 
the  nomination  of  a  vicar  apostolic  for  the  English  colonies 
in  America  was  mooted  in  Rome  before  our  independence. 
"  But,"  added  Bishop  Challoner,  "  this  may  not  be  relished 
by  those  that  reserve  the  best  part  of  the  missions  to  them- 
selves, and  who  may,  not  without  show  of  probabilit}', 
object  that  a  novelty  of  this  kind  might  give  offense  to  the 

247 


248  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvii. 

governing  part  there,  who  have  been  a  httle  hard  on  them 
of  late  years." 

In  a  report  to  the  Propaganda,  August  2,  1 763,  he  states 
the  number  of  missionaries  in  Maryland  to  be  twelve,  the 
number  of  Catholics,  including  chilciren,  to  be  sixteen 
thousand;  in  Pennsylvania  the  number  of  missionaries  to 
be  five,  of  Catholics,  including  children,  to  be  six  or  seven 
thousand.  He  then  goes  on  to  suggest  that,  "  now  that 
Canada  and  Florida  are  reduced  to  British  sway,  the 
Bishop  of  Quebec  might,  with  the  consent  of  our  court, 
have  his  jurisdiction  extended  by  the  holy  see  to  all  the 
English  colonies  and  islands  in  America."  This  sugges- 
tion, however,  was  not  what  he  desired  most;  he  favored 
rather  the  creation  of  two  or  three  separate  vicariates  for 
America.  "  But  I  foresee,"  he  writes  to  his  agent  in 
Rome,  "  the  execution  will  meet  with  very  great  difficul- 
ties, especially  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  where  the 
padri  have  had  so  long  possession,  and  will  hardly  endure 
a  prefect,  much  less  a  bishop  of  any  other  institute." 

There  was,  however,  a  grave  reason  why  the  Catholics 
and  the  Jesuits  of  America  at  the  time  looked  on  the  pro- 
ject with  no  favorable  eye.  The  colonies  had  loyally 
recognized  the  House  of  Brunswick ;  Rome  was  attached 
to  the  Stuarts,  and  recognized  Charles  Edward  as  king  of 
England.  His  brother,  the  Cardinal  of  York,  would  cer- 
tainly have  great  influence  in  the  nomination  of  any  bishop 
for  America.  Hence  the  fear  among  the  American  Cath- 
olics that  some  one  might  be  appointed  who  would  not  be 
a  persona  grata  either  to  the  court  of  England  or  the 
colonial  authorities.  Such  an  occurrence  might  involve 
them  in  political  disabilities  of  a  still  severer  nature.  The 
Jesuits  had  their  own  reasons  for  fearing:  Cardinal  York 
was  well  known  to  be  hostile  to  the  society,  and  to  be 
active  in  the  proceedings  that  were  then  on  foot  prepara- 


OPPOSITION   TO  A    BISHOPRIC.  249 

tory  to  its  suppression.  These  fears  inspired  a  remon- 
strance against  the  appointment  of  a  bisliop  for  America, 
signed  by  the  leading  Catholics  of  Maryland  and  sent  by 
the  fathers  to  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London ;  it  was  not, 
however,  forwarded  by  him  to  Rome.  Instead,  he  applied 
to  the  Propaganda  to  be  relieved  of  the  care  of  the  Amer- 
ican church,  and,  as  his  petition  was  refused,  he  wrote  to 
his  agent  in  Rome,  June,  1771  :  "  It  is  a  lamentable  thing 
that  such  a  multitude  should  have  to  live  and  die  always 
deprived  of  the  sacrament  of  confirmation.  The  fathers 
evince  an  unspeakable  repugnance  to  the  establishment 
of  a  bishop  among  them,  under  pretext  that  it  might  ex- 
cite a  violent  persecution  on  the  part  of  the  civil  author- 
ities. But  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  this  consequence 
can  be  feared,  if  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who  is  not  at  so 
very  great  distance  from  those  parts,  were  invited  and 
had  the  necessary  faculties  to  administer  confirmation  at 
least  once  to  these  Catholics." 

The  Jesuits  do  not  seem  to  have  been  opposed  to  visits 
from  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  for  the  purpose  of  administer- 
ing confirmation,  since  Father  Hunter,  the  superior,  went 
to  Canada  in  1769  to  confer  with  the  bishop  on  this  very 
point.  Moreover,  Cardinal  Castelli  wrote  the  bishop  in 
September,  1771,  that  it  was  the  desire  of  the  Propaganda 
that  he  should,  if  possible,  visit  the  Catholics  of  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania  ;  but  no  such  visit  was  ever  made.  The 
reason  probably  was  that  the  English  government  refused 
permission,  lest  offense  be  given  to  the  colonies  by  the 
extension  to  the  Catholics  of  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland 
of  the  tolerance  granted  to  Canada  by  the  Quebec  Act. 
This  demands  some  explanation. 

The  Northwest  Territory,  including  Ohio,  Indiana,  Mich- 
igan, Wisconsin,  and  Illinois,  was  claimed  in  strips  by 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New  York,  Maryland,  andVir' 


250  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvit. 

ginia,  in  virtue  of  their  original  cliarters  extending  from 
ocean  to  ocean.  But  the  people  of  these  colonies  not  only- 
had  not  occupied,  but  had  never  reached  by  direct  com- 
munication and  trade,  this  Western  territory,  and  England 
did  not  propose  to  acknowledge  their  shadowy  claims  to 
it  under  the  vague  charters  granted  in  days  when  little  or 
nothing  was  known  of  the  geography  of  the  interior.  At 
any  rate,  the  Western  territory  had  been  seized  and  occu- 
pied by  France,  and  it  was  England,  not  the  colonies,  that 
had  wrested  it  from  that  power.  The  people  living  in  that 
territory  were  subject,  after  the  conquest,  directly  to  the 
British  commander-in-chief,  residing  in  New  York,  who 
ruled  it  through  officers  appointed  by  himself.  In  order 
to  establish  some  kind  of  regular  organization  there,  a  bill 
was  introduced  into  Parliament  in  1774,  known  as  the 
Quebec  Act. 

It  annexed  the  Western  country  to  Canada,  thus  putting 
aside  the  claims  of  the  colonies ;  it  officially  recognized  the 
Catholic  Church  there,  with  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
the  clergy  formerly  allowed  under  French  dominion  ;  and 
it  decreed  that  Canada  and  the  Northwest  should  continue 
to  be  governed  by  French  law.  All  this  was  done  in  faith- 
fulness to  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  After  a  hot  debate,  in 
which  Lord  North  and  Edmund  Burke  were  the  chief 
defenders  of  the  rights  of  the  conquered  territory,  the  bill 
became  law,  in  June,  1774.  The  Act  of  Quebec,  as  it 
was  called,  roused  the  fanatical  portion  of  the  Protestant 
population  in  England  and  especially  in  America.  Our 
Continental  Congress  in  1774  characterized  the  act  as  "  in 
an  extreme  degree  dangerous,"  as  one  of  those  acts  that 
were  declared  to  be  "  infringements  and  violations  of  the 
rights  of  the  colonies."  In  an  address  issued  by  Congress 
to  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  September,  i  774,  it  is  said  : 
"  We   think   that   the   legislature   of   Great  Britain   is  not 


THE    QUEBEC  ACT.  25  I 

authorized  by  the  Constitution  to  estabhsh  a  reUgion 
fraught  with  sanguinary  and  impious  tenets,  and  to  erect 
an  arbitrary  form  of  government,  in  any  quarter  of  the 
globe.  By  this  the  Dominion  of  Canada  is  so  extended, 
modeled,  and  governed,  as  that,  being  disunited  from  us, 
detached  from  our  interests  by  civil  as  well  as  religious 
prejudices,  that  by  their  numbers  daily  swelling  with 
Catholic  emigrants  from  Europe,  they  might  become  for- 
midable to  us,  and  on  occasion  be  fit  instruments  in  the 
hands  of  power  to  reduce  the  ancient  free  Protestant  col- 
onies to  the  same  state  of  slavery  with  themselves."  The 
author  of  the  address  was  John  Jay.  An  address  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  colonies,  similar  in  thought,  though 
more  moderate  in  tone,  helped  to  further  entertain  and 
extend  the  excitement.  It  was  an  unfortunate  agitation  ; 
for  when  the  day  came  that  the  cause  of  American  inde- 
pendence needed  and  sought  the  cooperation  of  Canada, 
the  remembrance  of  England's  liberal  treatment  and  of 
America's  intolerant  attitude  caused  that  province  to  cast 
its  lot  with  the  mother  country ;  and  by  so  much  were  the 
colonies,  fighting  for  liberty,  weakened  in  the  contest. 

However,  much  as  politicians  raved  at  the  Quebec  Act, 
the  people  at  large  do  not  seem  to  have  been  much  dis-. 
turbed  by  it,  or  to  have  mistrusted  their  Catholic  fellow- 
citizens.  Facts  were  stronger  than  prejudices.  As  the 
momentous  struggle  between  England  and  America  arose 
and  pronounced  itself,  it  was  found  that  patriotism  was 
no  less  warm  among  the  Catholics  and  their  clergy  than 
among  the  rest  of  the  population.  Men  like  Carroll  in  the 
East  and  Gibault  in  the  West  were  more  convincing  b)- 
their  practical  conduct  than  men  like  Jay  and  the  Prot- 
estant ministers  by  their  rantings,  fiery  sermons,  and 
pamphlets.  The  sentiments  and  deeds  of  the  Catholic 
ecclesiastical  leaders  were  reflected  in  the  large  numbers 


252  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvil. 

of  the  Catholic  colonists  who  were  swelling  the  ranks  of 
the  armies  raised  for  independence. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  Quebec  Act  produced  only  a 
passing  effervescence  that  vanished  in  words ;  in  only  a 
few  cases  did  it  produce  deeds  of  intolerance.  Even  in 
Canada  the  hatred  of  England  was  so  deep  and  strong, 
the  spirit  of  liberty  so  catching,  that  in  spite  of  the  direst 
spiritual  penalties  fulminated  by  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  in 
spite  of  the  hard  things  said  in  America  about  the  Quebec 
Act,  Canadians  flocked  to  the  cause  of  the  colonies,  and 
furnished  to  the  American  army  two  regiments  known  as 
"Congress  Own."  They  had  a  Catholic  chaplain,  duly 
commissioned  and  salaried  by  the  Continental  Congress. 
This  instance  goes  to  show  that,  if  the  protests  against  the 
Quebec  Act  had  never  been  issued,  all  Canada  would  have 
been  with  us  in  the  struggle.  An  evident  change  was 
coming  over  the  public  spirit ;  the  leading  statesmen  and 
soldiers  were  foremost  in  the  softening  of  religious  preju- 
dices, the  toning  down  of  intolerance,  and  the  advocacy  of 
religious  liberty.  Nothing  proves  this  better  than  two 
historic  acts  of  the  period,  one  by  Washington,  just  come 
to  the  command  of  the  continental  army,  the  other  by  the 
Continental  Congress. 

Guy  Fawkes's  day  was  kept  in  New  England  as  Pope's 
day  on  the  5th  of  November.  On  that  day  a  figure 
representing  the  Pope  was  carried  through  the  streets  of 
Boston  in  mock  procession  and  burned.  Informed  that 
the  camp  was  preparing  the  usual  celebration  and  seeing 
how  impolitic  it  was  when  Congress  was  making  every 
exertion  to  win  over  Canada  and  the  Catholics  in  the 
Northwest  and  Maine,  Washington  issued  a  general  order 
forbidding  it.  On  the  15th  of  February,  1776,  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  resolved  "  that  a  committee  of  three  be 
appointed  to  repair  to  Canada  "  for  the  purpose  of  indue- 


SOFTEA'/.VG    OF  FKEJUDICES.  253 

ing  the  Canadians  to  join  the  American  cause.  Benjamin 
Frankhn,  Samuel  Chase,  and  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton 
were  appointed  commissioners.  John  Carroll  was  invited 
by  Congress  to  join  them.  A  letter  to  his  mother  is  ex- 
tant in  which  he  describes  the  journey,  the  reception  in 
Canada,  and  the  result.  The  American  priest  found  that 
it  was  too  late  to  discuss  the  question  of  union  with  the 
colonies,  or  even  neutrality  ;  the  Quebec  Act  completely 
satisfied  the  bishop  and  clergy,  whereas  the  laws  on  the 
statute-books  of  the  colonies  and  the  denunciations  of  the 
Quebec  Act  were  taken  as  proof  that  only  intolerance  was 
to  be  expected  from  the  colonies.  We  had  spoiled  our 
chances  in  that  quarter,  and  knew  it  too  late. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  very  fact  that  the  former  ene- 
mies of  England  were  now  under  English  dominion  did 
away  with  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the  persecution 
inflicted  on  the  Catholics  of  the  colonies.  Heretofore  they 
had  been  suspected  and  accused  of  sympathizing  and 
secretly  conniving  with  France  whenever  intercolonial  w  ar 
arose.  From  the  time,  therefore,  of  England's  triumph 
on  the  American  continent  began  for  Catholics  a  new  and 
better  era,  a  period  of  toleration  that  had  its  crowning  a 
few  years  later  in  the  American  Revolution.  Still  brighter 
times  came  with  the  resistance  of  the  colonies  to  the 
Stamp  Act.  Among  the  native  clergy,  of  whom  Carroll 
was  the  most  prominent  member,  patriotism  was  strong ; 
and  those  of  German  extraction,  without  being  so  ardent 
in  their  opposition  to  England,  nevertheless  cast  their  lot 
with  their  flocks.  The  feeling  of  bigotry  evoked  by  the 
Quebec  Act  soon  passed  away;  "popery"  ceased  to  be 
heralded  as  dangerous  to  colonial  interests.  The  neces- 
sity of  presenting  a  united  front  to  the  coming  danger 
brought  about  a  kindlier  .spirit ;  religious  libert}'  gained 
in   public   opinion,  and  presently   became   the   theme   of 


2  54  "^^^^  ROMAN  CATIIOL/CS.  [Chap.  xvii. 

public  discussion.  Under  these  favorable  circumstances 
the  missions  were  extended,  and  churches  were  erected 
and  pubHcly  opened  in  cities  hke  Baltimore,  New  York, 
and  Philadelphia,  as  well  as  in  country  places,  without  ex- 
citing the  former  animosities. 

In  July,  1773,  there  fell  on  the  American  missionaries 
a  blow  that  came  nigh  shattering  the  missions ;  it  was  the 
bull  Domitms  ac  Redemptor,  suppressing  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  In  October,  1773,  Bishop  Challoner,  the  Vicar 
Apostolic  of  London,  notified  formally  the  Jesuit  mission- 
aries of  America  under  his  jurisdiction  of  the  act  of  Clem- 
ent XIV.,  and  required  their  individual  subscriptions  to  its 
acceptance.  They  were  transformed  into  diocesan  priests ; 
their  former  superior  became  the  diocesan  vicar  general 
of  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London ;  all  the  fathers  on  the 
American  missions — there  were  nineteen  at  the  time — re- 
mained at  their  posts.  The  bull  of  suppression  had  made 
very  precise  arrangements  as  to  the  property  of  the  society, 
and  each  bishop  was  empowered  to  carry  them  out  in  his 
diocese.  The  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London  took  no  action 
on  this  score  ;  left  free  in  the  matter,  the  American  fathers, 
in  order  to  secure  the  former  property  of  the  society  for 
the  support  of  the  missions,  formed  themselves  into  a  legal 
corporation  for  the  purpose. 

In  the  same  year  (i  773)  that  Clement  XIV.  pronounced 
the  suppression  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  the  men  of  Boston 
took  the  first  historic  step  toward  independence  by  the 
unloading  of  a  cargo  of  English  tea  in  the  harbor;  the 
following  year  the  first  Continental  Congress  met  in  Phila- 
delphia; and  in  the  spring  of  1775  was  fired  at  Lexington 
the  first  shot  for  liberty  that  rang  continuously  in  the  land 
until  October  19,  1781,  when  Cornwallis  yielded  his  sword 
to  Washington  at  Yorktown.  In  that  memorable  war 
Catholics  joined    the  army  and  the  navy  in  numbers  out 


CATHOLICS  IX    THE   KEVOLUTIOXAKY   WAR.        255 

of  all  proportion  to  their  quota  of  the  population ;  and  to 
both  they  furnished  not  only  sturdy  privates,  but  brilliant 
leaders,  whose  names  make  a  long  and  glorious  roll.  In 
I  776  the  House  of  Lords  appointed  a  committee  of  inquiry 
on  the  American  war.  Joseph  Galloway,  who  was  an 
officer  in  high  command  on  the  royalist  side,  testified  be- 
fore that  committee  that  one  half  of  the  troops  in  the 
service  of  Congress  were  Irish,  one  fourth  English  and 
Scotch,  one  fourth  natives  of  America.  Before  the  same 
committee  Major-General  Robertson,  in  reply  to  a  ques- 
tion from  Lord  George  Germain,  said,  "  I  remember  Gen- 
eral Lee  telling  me  that  half  the  rebel  army  came  from 
Ireland."  The  authority  we  have  for  the  above  is  a  letter 
to  the  "  Monitor  "  of  San  Francisco  from  M.  W.  Kirwin, 
of  Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  who  asserts  that  he  went  to  the 
British  Museum  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  if  there 
were  any  record  of  the  Irishmen  who  served  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary armies,  and  found  there  the  statements  just 
given. 

We  do  not  claim  that  the  Irish  one  half  were  all  Cath- 
olics ;  but,  granting  any  justifiable  amount  of  paring  down, 
we  do  claim  that  the  number  of  Catholics  in  the  war  was 
considerable.  So  that  after  the  struggle  Archbishop  Car- 
roll could  write :  "  Their  blood  flowed  as  freely,  in  propor- 
tion to  their  numbers,  to  cement  the  fabric  of  independence 
as  that  of  any  of  their  fellow-citizens.  They  concurred 
with  perhaps  greater  unanimity  than  any  other  body  of 
men  in  recommending  and  promoting  that  go\-ernment 
from  whose  influence  America  anticipates  all  the  blessings 
of  justice,  peace,  plenty,  good  order,  and  civil  and  religious 
liberty.  The  Catholic  regiment,  '  Congress  Own,'  the 
Catholic  Indians  from  St.  John,  Me.,  under  the  chief 
Ambrose  Var,  the  Catholic  Penobscots  under  the  chief 
Orono,  fought  side  by  side  with  their  Protestant  fellow- 


256  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS,  [Chai-.  xvii. 

colonists.  Catholic  officers  from  Catholic  lands — Ireland, 
France,  and  Poland — came  to  offer  their  services  to  the 
cause  of  liberty."  In  February,  1778,  France  made  a 
treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  with  the  new  republic, 
thus  formally  recognizing  its  independence  as  a  nation ; 
the  following  year  Catholic  Spain  declared  war  against 
England  and  sent  a  representative  to  the  United  States, 
thus  acknowledging  them  to  be  a  nation. 

Our  first  diplomatic  circle  was  Catholic,  made  up  of  the 
ministers  of  those  two  countries.  This  accounts  for  the 
solemn  church  services,  introduced  to  the  American  peo- 
ple, to  which  the  federal  authorities  and  high  military 
officers  were  invited  on  great  national  occasions.  Then  to 
our  shores  came  French  fleets  and  French  regiments,  with 
chaplains  and  religious  services  for  the  Catholic  soldiers 
and  sailors  of  France.  In  this  toleration,  not  to  say 
triumph,  of  the  Catholic  Church  the  Tories  found  an  ex- 
cuse for  their  opposition  to  the  American  cause  and  their 
sympathy  with  England.  They  preferred  political  enslave- 
ment to  liberty  gained  with  such  aid,  71011  tali  atixilio. 
Listen  to  the  traitor  Arnold  in  a  proclamation  issued  to 
the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  continental  army,  October 
20,  1780:  "  And  should  the  parent  nation  cease  her  exer- 
tions to  deli\'er  you,  what  security  remains  to  you  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  consolations  of  that  religion  for  which 
your  fathers  braved  the  ocean,  the  heathen,  and  tlie  wil- 
derness? Do  you  know  that  the  eye  that  guides  this  pen 
lately  saw  your  mean  and  profligate  Congress  at  mass  for 
the  soul  of  a  Roman  Catholic  in  purgatory,  and  participat- 
ing in  the  rites  of  a  church  against  whose  antichristian 
corruptions  your  pious  ancestors  would  have  witnessed 
with  their  blood  ?  " 

The  attempt  made  by  England  in  1778  to  form  a  Cath- 
olic regiment  of  Americans  and  give  them  Father  Farmer 


RELIGIOUS  EQUALITY.  257 

as  a  chaplain  failed  most  miserably.  The  recruits  were 
not  forthcoming-,  and  the  venerable  priest  refused  to  lend 
the  influence  of  his  name  and  office  to  the  enemies  of 
American  independence.  Among'  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  were  the  Catholics  Thomas 
Fitzsimmons,  Thomas  Sim  Lee,  the  war- governor  of  Mary- 
land. Daniel  Carroll,  the  brother  of  the  future  Archbishop 
of  Baltimore,  and  Charles  Carroll,  who  by  the  affix  to  his 
signature,  "  of  Carrollton,"  pledged  his  fortune  to  the 
cause.  Toward  the  end  of  his  long  and  noble  life  he 
wrote  to  a  descendant  of  the  Washington  family,  G.  W.  P. 
Custis,  February  20,  1829:  "When  I  signed  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  I  had  in  view  not  only  our  inde- 
pendence of  England,  but  the  toleration  of  all  sects 
professing  the  Christian  religion,  and  communicating  to 
them  all  equal  rights.  Happily  this  wise  and  salutary 
measure  has  taken  place  for  eradicating  religious  feuds  and 
persecution,  and  become  a  useful  lesson  to  all  governments. 
Reflecting,  as  you  must,  on  the  disabilities,  I  may  truly 
say  on  the  proscription,  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Mary- 
land, you  will  not  be  surprised  that  I  had  much  at  heart 
this  grand  design  founded  on  mutual  charity,  the  basis  of 
our  holy  religion." 

That  the  times  were  changing  and  that  a  spirit  more 
tolerant  was  coming  over  the  nation  was  proved  not  only 
by  the  publicity  and  almost  official  recognition  given  to 
the  solemn  services  of  the  church  on  certain  occasions,  not 
only  by  the  freedom  with  which  the  missionaries  pene- 
trated to  the  camp,  the  fleet,  the  settlements  of  Catholics 
all  along  the  seaboard  States,  but  much  more  by  the  con- 
stitutions adopted  by  the  States  immediately  after  declar- 
ing their  independence  of  England.  Not  all  of  them,  it  is 
true,  inscribed  on  their  charters  religious  liberty  at  this 
time ;  bigotry  dies  not  quickly.      But,  at  any  rate,  the  first 


258  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xvu. 

Continental  Congress  (1774)  had  sounded  the  key-note: 
"  As  an  opposition  to  the  settled  plan  of  the  British 
administration  to  enslave  America  will  be  strengthened  by 
a  union  of  all  ranks  of  men  within  this  province,  we  do 
most  earnestly  recommend  that  all  former  differences 
about  religion  or  politics  .  .  .  from  henceforth  cease  and 
be  forever  buried  in  oblivion."  Many  of  the  States — 
Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  Georgia, 
Connecticut — caught  up  this  spirit,  removed  former  re- 
strictions on  the  Catholics,  and  admitted  them  to  all  rights 
of  citizenship.  This  movement  toward  religious  equality 
became  universal  and  complete,  however,  only  after  the 
Philadelphia  Convention  of  1787,  in  which  was  adopted 
the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  dawn 
had  come ;  yet  a  little  while  and  the  full  sun  will  shine 
above  us. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE  PREFECTURE  APOSTOLIC. 

During  the  Revolutionary  War  direct  correspondence 
between  England  and  the  States  had  ceased  and  indirect 
correspondence  was  difficult.  After  the  death  (January, 
1 781)  of  Bishop  Challoner,  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London, 
his  successor,  the  Rt.  Rev.  James  Talbot,  held  no  inter- 
course whatever  with  the  church  in  America.  In  1783  he 
refused  faculties  for  the  American  missions  to  two  Mary- 
land priests,  John  Boone  and  Henry  Pile,  belonging  to  the 
suppressed  society,  who  at  the  end  of  the  war  wished  to 
leave  England  for  home ;  and  he  declared  to  them  that  he 
would  no  longer  exercise  jurisdiction  in  the  United  States. 
These  two  priests  stated  their  case  to  the  Propaganda, 
from  whom  they  solicited  the  faculties  refused  by  the 
bishop,  and  thus  the  abnormal  condition  of  the  church  in 
this  country  was  made  known  to  Rome.  Left  to  them- 
selves, the  Maryland  clergy  made  no  attempt  to  restore 
their  dependence  on  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London,  lest 
they  might  excite  the  prejudices  of  their  fellow-colonists, 
and  began  to  move  for  a  local  superior  chosen  from  them- 
selves, who  should  be  subject  directly  to  the  holy  see.  It 
behooved  them  to  bestir  themselves,  for  they  had  now  no 
formal  connection  with  any  section  of  the  European  church, 
nor  with  Rome,  nor  had  they  any  organization  of  their 
own ;  and,  moreover,  having  no  hopes  of  further  acces- 
sions to  their  ranks  from  England,  they  were  thrown  upon 

259 


26o  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xviii. 

their  own  resources  to  perpetuate  their  body — a  pressing 
need,  for  death  was  fast  thinning  their  number. 

The  situation  was  critical  and  demanded  a  rearrange- 
ment. Until  the  holy  see  should  make  provision  for  this 
state  of  things,  the  Maryland  clergy  took  steps  to  secure 
their  former  property  and  maintain  some  kind  of  discipline. 
A  preliminary  meeting  for  this  purpose  was  held  at  White- 
marsh,  June,  1783,  and  a  formal  meeting  in  September  of 
the  same  year,  at  which  met  duly  chosen  and  accredited 
delegates  of  all  the  clergy  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania. 
Among  them  was  the  vicar  general,  Mr.  Lewis,  and  John 
Carroll.  The  final  adoption  of  the  plans  discussed  was 
postponed  to  a  future  meeting ;  the  only  outcome  of  the 
present  assembly  was  a  petition  to  the  Pope  asking  that 
Rev.  Mr.  Lewis  be  formally  constituted  superior,  with 
power  to  administer  confirmation,  and  with  other  privileges 
not  strictly  of  the  episcopal  order. 

As,  on  second  thought,  it  was  considered  that  the  first 
petition,  already  sent,  might  give  offense,  a  second  one, 
with  slight  alterations  and  a  milder  tone,  was  drawn  up, 
and  sent  by  Father  Carroll  to  a  friend  in  Rome  to  be  pre- 
sented to  the  Pope.  A  remarkable  feature  in  Carroll's 
letter  is  that  he  states  to  his  friend  in  Rome  that  he  will 
have  this  move  aided  by  "  a  recommendation  from  our 
own  country  and  the  minister  of  France,"  and  "you  will 
know  how  to  avail  yourself  of  so  favorable  a  Russian  min- 
ister at  Rome."  Here  is  shown  a  tendency  to  bring  into 
church  matters  the  influence  of  the  civil  power.  Evidently 
the  non-interference  policy  of  the  United  States  in  rehgion 
was  not  fully  comprehended  or  outlined  at  that  time ;  the 
European  ideas  of  the  relations  of  church  and  state  still 
possessed  Carroll,  brought  up  in  Europe,  and,  what  is 
more  strange,  possessed  that  pure  American,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  as  the  following  facts  show. 


FRANKLIN  AND   CAR-ROLL.  26 1 

Franklin  at  that  time  represented  the  United  States  in 
Paris,  and  Prince  PamphiHo  Doria,  Archbishop  of  Seleucia, 
was  the  papal  nuncio  there.  The  latter  was  approached 
on  the  subject  of  the  American  project,  and  wrote  to 
Franklin  that  it  was  a  matter  that  ought  to  be  arranged 
between  Congress  and  the  French  king,  and  that  a  French- 
man residing  in  Paris  ought  to  be  chosen  the  ecclesiastical 
superior  of  the  colonies.  This  scheme,  it  appears,  had 
been  hatched  in  the  French  embassy  at  Philadelphia.  It 
meant  the  de- Americanizing  of  the  church  in  the  United 
States  at  its  very  birth,  and  making  it  a  dependency  of 
the  church  of  France.  That  country  had  rendered  us 
political  services,  and  was  about  to  render  us  religious 
services  for  which  we  cannot  be  too  grateful,  but  not  at 
the  cost  of  our  ecclesiastical  independence.  Franklin  for 
a  moment  forgot  his  American  spirit,  fell  in  with  the 
scheme,  wrote  the  prime  minister  of  France,  Count  de 
Vergennes,  in  the  sense  of  the  nuncio's  note,  and  then 
referred  the  matter  to  the  Continental  Congress. 

No  Catholic  sat  in  that  body  at  the  time,  nor  did  the 
American  clergy  know  what  was  going  on  ;  therefore  the 
answer  of  Congress  did  not  come  from  Catholic  influence 
or  dictation.  The  answer  was,  "That  the  subject  being 
purely  spiritual,  it  is  without  the  powers  and.  jurisdiction 
of  Congress,  who  have  no  authority  to  permit  or  refuse  it, 
these  powers  being  reserved  to  the  several  States  individ- 
ually." It  was  not  long  before  the  intrigue  came  to  the 
knowledge  of  European  clergymen,  former  associates  in 
the  Society  of  Jesus  of  the  Mar}dand  Jesuits,  and  of  Car- 
roll. They  hastened  to  open  the  eyes  of  Franklin  to  the 
dishonor  thus  inflicted  on  the  American  clergy,  and  espe- 
cially on  Carroll,  whom  he  knew  well ;  for  the  intrigue 
implied,  and  Marbois,  the  French  minister  in  New  York, 
had  plainly   enough   asserted,  tliat   the   American   priests 


262  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap,  xviii. 

were  not  worthy  of  trust,  and  had  no  one  among  them  fit 
to  guide  tlie  American  church.  Frankhn  saw  at  once  his 
mistake,  and  thenceforward  exerted  his  influence  in  an 
unofficial  way  for  the  nomination  of  Carroll.  At  any  rate, 
what  between  the  refusal  of  Congress  to  touch  the  matter 
and  Franklin's  refusal  to  go  on  with  it,  the  French  scheme 
fell  through.  It  stands  at  our  cradle  as  a  lesson  and  a 
warning  to  us  to  beware  how  we  invoke  the  interference 
of  the  civil  powers  in  our  church  affairs. 

While  Paris  was  thus  busying  itself  with  us,  Rome,  with- 
out heeding  the  intrusive  busybodies,  was  also  engaged 
with  the  same  matter.  The  memorial  of  the  Maryland 
clergy  to  Pope. Pius  VI.  was  referred  by  him  to  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Propaganda,  which,  before  coming  to  any 
decision,  wrote  to  Carroll  for  a  complete  report  on  the 
actual  condition  of  the  American  missions.  But  the  Con- 
gregation did  not  await  Carroll's  report ;  there  were  other 
sources  at  hand  from  which  it  could  get  the  information, 
viz.,  the  former  reports  of  the  vicars  apostolic  of  London, 
especially  of  Challoner,  and  the  archives  of  the  English 
province  of  Jesuits.  The  upshot  was  that  the  Propaganda 
proposed  to  the  Pope  the  name  of  John  Carroll  as  the 
superior  of  the  church  in  the  thirteen  United  States  of 
North  America,  with  power  to  give  confirmation.  The 
nomination  was  confirmed  by  the  Pope  June  6,  1784. 
The  decree  making  the  church  of  the  United  States  a  dis- 
tinct body  from  that  of  England,  and  appointing  the  Ver)- 
Rev.  John  Carroll  prefect  apostolic,  was  issued  by  Cardinal 
Antonelli,  prefect  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda, 
June  9,  1784.  By  letter  of  June  19th  the  cardinal  prefect 
notified  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London  of  this  step,  and 
by  that  official  act  was  terminated  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
English  over  the  American  church.  Carroll  was  given 
jurisdiction  over  the  thirteen  States;  but  it  was  not  at  all 


JOHN  CARROLL.  263 

clear  from  the  document  that  he  had  jurisdiction  c  ver  those 
portions  of  the  new  repubhc  which  heretofore  had  been 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  Quebec,  such  as  the  Maine  Indi- 
ans and  the  Catholics  in  the  Northwest  Territory.  In 
time  this  doubt  was  cleared  up,  and  all  the  country  over 
which  floated  the  stars  and  stripes  came  under  his  juris- 
diction. 

A  few  words  here  about  the  early  life  of  John  Carroll. 
It  was  in  the  days  that  France  was  exploring  and  occupy- 
ing the  interior  of  the  continent,  and  English  colonial 
statesmen  were  viewing  with  alarm  the  thin,  long  line  of 
French  posts  gradually  stretching  along  the  lakes  and  the 
Mississippi  from  Quebec  to  New  Orleans;  it  was  on  the 
eve  of  the  long  intercolonial  struggle  for  the  possession  of 
this  country  between  France  and  England,  a  struggle  last- 
ing over  half  a  century  ;  it  was,  I  say,  at  this  crucial  period 
in  the  history  of  our  land  that  John  Carroll  was  born,  on 
the  8th  of  January,  1735,  at  Upper  Marlborough,  Prince 
George's  County,  Md.  His  father,  a  native  of  Ireland, 
had  married  Eleanor  Darnall,  a  woman  of  most  refined 
education,  of  remarkable  mental  and  moral  qualities,  fitting 
her  to  be  the  mother  of  noble  children.  At  this  time  the 
Jesuit  fathers  had  a  school  at  Hermon's  Manor  of  Bohemia 
in  Cecil  County  ;  nothing  of  the  building  remains  to  indi- 
cate the  site  of  the  first  seat  of  Catholic  education  in  the 
State  save  an  old  chapel.  Thither,  at  the  age  of  twel\-e, 
the  boy  was  sent,  and  there  he  had  for  fellow-student 
another  lad,  a  relative  and  namesake,  Charles  Carroll,  who 
became  in  the  political  sphere  as  great  and  illustrious  as 
John  in  the  ecclesiastical ;  Charles  Carroll,  who  gave  to 
Carrollton  on  the  charter  of  the  nation  a  renown  as  im- 
mortal as  John  gave  to  Baltimore  on  the  p£iges  of  church 
history. 

After  a  year  spent  in  this  school  John  Carroll  was  sent 


264  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap,  xviii. 

abroad ;  for  there  was  not  yet  in  this  land  any  institution 
— at  least  Catholic — in  which  a  higher  education  might  be 
safe!}/  obtained  by  a  Catholic  boy.  Nor  was  there  in 
England  any  such  institution ;  the  Protestant  Reformation 
had  turned  into  nurseries  of  Protestantism  all  the  glorious 
homes  of  learning  which  Catholic  faith  and  generosity  had 
set  up  in  the  preceding  centuries.  But  in  France,  Spain, 
and  Portugal  Catholic  English  refugees,  secular  priests  and 
religious,  had  provided  houses  of  education  where  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  persecuted  Catholic  gentry  of 
England  might  receive,  without  danger  to  faith,  that  in- 
struction their  country  denied  them,  at  the  great  price, 
however,  of  exile  from  home.  Such  was  St.  Omer's  Col- 
lege in  France,  to  which  young  Carroll,  at  the  age  of 
twelve,  was  sent.  He  was  not  to  see  again  the  beloved 
faces  of  parents  and  relatives,  nor  the  green  fields  and  fair 
streams  of  his  Maryland,  until  he  was  a  man  of  forty.  It 
was  in  foreign  lands  that  he  spent  the  better  part  of  his 
life,  student  for  six  years  at  St.  Omer,  novice  for  two  years 
in  the  Jesuit  house  of  Watten,  ecclesiastical  student  again 
in  the  Jesuit  college  at  Liege,  priest  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight,  professor  in  Jesuit  colleges  at  Liege  and  Bruges  for 
fourteen  years. 

In  1773  was  given  to  the  world  the  famous  bull  of 
Clement  XIV.,  that  suppressed  and  dissolved  the  Society 
of  Jesus.  Carroll's  career  as  a  member  of  that  famous 
order  came  to  an  end.  Imited  by  Lord  Arundel  to 
make  Wardour  Castle  in  England  his  home  for  the  future, 
he  refused  to  lose  himself  in  the  refined  and  comfortable 
life  of  a  nobleman's  palace.  No  doubt  he  felt  that  his 
American  manhood  demanded  he  should  be  the  people's, 
not  the  nobleman's,  priest ;  and,  at  any  rate,  as  he  had 
kept  himself  constantly  in  touch  with  his  native  land,  he 
knew  and  foresaw  that  the  day  was  not  far  distant  when 


CARROLL    PREFECT  APOSTOLIC.  265 

the  colonies  should  arise  as  one  people,  and  claim  at  the 
sword's  point,  if  need  be,  their  national  independence. 
Stirring  times  were  ahead,  freedom  was  at  stake ;  what 
might  be  the  outcome  for  country  and  church  was  doubt- 
ful ;  it  behooved  him,  like  a  loyal  American,  to  be  on  the 
field,  and  share  his  people's  fate,  and  give  his  aid  to  the 
nascent  church  of  America  through  the  coming  ordeal. 
But,  whatever  Carroll's  motives,  God  had  his  views  and 
was  leading  him.  He  was  destined  to  be  in  our  land  the 
providential  man  of  Catholicity  as  Washington  of  democ- 
racy ;  in  these  representative  leaders  Catholicity  and  de- 
mocracy were  to  join  hands  and  give  to  the  Old  World 
on  this  new  field  of  human  life,  wrested  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  before  by  Columbus  from  the  terrors  of  the 
ocean,  the  spectacle  of  the  old  faith  and  of  a  new  politi- 
cal form  growing  side  by  side  in  wonderful  strength  and 
harmony.  The  year  1774  saw  Carroll,  in  the  prime  of 
manhood,  back  in  his  mother's  home  in  Rockville,  Mont- 
gomery County,  Md. 

It  was  only  November  26,  1784,  that  the  official  docu- 
ments of  his  appointment  as  prefect  apostolic  reached 
Carroll,  though  as  early  as  the  preceding  August  he  had 
been  privately  informed,  and  the  news  was  generally 
known  in  the  country.  But  before  the  documents  came 
the  postponed  meeting  of  the  clergy  of  Maryland  and 
Pennsylvania  for  the  getting  up  of  a  plan  of  church  gov- 
ernment was  held.  The  priests,  suppressed  Jesuits  in 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  were  to  form  a  body  corpo- 
rate, which  was  to  hold,  until  restoration  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  the  property  formerly  held  by  the  individuals  of 
that  society  in  those  two  colonies.  The  affairs  of  the 
corporation  were  to  be  managed  by  a  chapter  elected  b\- 
the  members  thereof.  The  chapter  was  to  name  a  procu- 
rator  to  ha\ti  charge  of  tlie  property.      The  person  wlio 


266  'THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xViiI. 

should  be  invested  with  spiritual  jurisdiction  in  the  colonies 
should  not,  as  such,  have  any  power  over  or  in  the  property. 
The  superior  in  spiritualities  was,  however,  to  receive  from 
the  chapter  an  annual  salary  of  one  hundred  pounds,  with 
a  servant,  a  chaise,  and  a  horse.  It  was  also  decided  that 
"  a  bishop  is  at  present  unnecessary,"  but  that  a  superior 
with  power  to  give  confirmation,  bless  oils,  grant  faculties 
and  dispensations,  was  sufficient ;  that,  if  a  bishop  was  sent 
them,  he  should  not  be  entitled  to  any  support  from  the 
present  estates  of  the  clergy. 

By  those  proceedings,  which  had  no  authorization  from 
Rome,  a  double  superiorship  was  set  up,  one  in  temporals, 
another  in  spirituals ;  the  superior  in  spirituals  was  put  at 
a  disadvantage,  not  to  say  at  the  mercy  of  the  clergy,  if  he 
did  not  prove  agreeable  to  the  corporation ;  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  bishop,  as  far  as  in  them  lay,  was  barred. 
At  the  bottom  of  it  all  lay  the  idea  and  hope  of  the  resto- 
ration of  the  society.  It  was  Barbe  de  Marbois,  the  French 
ambassador  residing  in  New  York,  the  originator  of  the 
French  intrigue,  who  first  notified  Carroll  of  his  appoint- 
ment as  prefect  apostolic.  The  formal  decree  reached 
him  November  26,  1784.  The  decree  states  that  Carroll 
was  appointed  "  to  please  and  gratify  many  members  of 
the  Republic,  and  especially  Mr.  Franklin,  the  eminent 
individual  who  represents  the  same  Republic  at  the  court 
of  the  Most  Christian  King."  The  arrangement,  it  goes 
on  to  say,  was  temporary ;  a  bishop  would  soon  be  ap- 
pointed as  vicar  apostolic.  In  the  meantime  the  Propa- 
ganda wanted  to  know  what  was  the  condition  in  spirituals 
and  temporals  of  the  country. 

This  gave  the  church  in  the  colonies  independence  from 
any  other  center  but  Rome  at  the  very  time  we  had  gained 
political  independence.  By  a  clerical  oversight  a  clause 
was  put  in  the  document  of  Carroll's  appointment  that 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   THE   POSITIOX.  267 

cramped  his  administration  for  a  while ;  it  was  that  the 
prefect  should  give  faculties  to  no  priests  coming  to  this 
country  except  those  sent  and  approved  by  the  Congre- 
gation of  the  Propaganda.  Now,  as  the  Propaganda  did 
not  intend  to  send  any  priests,  and  as  those  priests  who 
might  come  could  not  very  well  return  to  Europe  for  the 
approval  of  the  Congregation,  the  predicament  was  rather 
an  awkward  one.  It  so  puzzled  and  vexed  Carroll  that 
he  hesitated  whether  he  should  accept  the  position.  He 
feared,  as  letters  of  his  to  friends  in  Europe  show,  that 
this  very  strict  subordination  in  the  choice  of  priests  to  a 
foreign  congregation  might  create  difficulties  and  suspicions 
on  the  part  of  the  colonial  authorities.  But  since  the  pre- 
fecture was  expected  to  pave  the  way  to  some  more  sat- 
isfactory and  permanent  arrangement,  and  since,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  refusal  might  result  in  the  imposition  of  a 
foreigner  as  prefect  on  the  Catholics  of  America,  Carroll 
yielded  to  the  arguments  of  his  fellow-priests  and  decided 
to  take  up  the  onerous  office. 

On  the  27th  of  February,  1785,  he  wrote  Cardinal 
Antonelli  to  notify  him  of  his  acceptance  and  return  his 
thanks.  In  this  letter  may  be  seen  in  many  passages  his 
fear  lest  the  country  should  look  with  disfavor  on  the  too 
close  connection  of  the  church  with  the  Congregation  of 
the  Propaganda.  He  was  hinting,  no  doubt,  at  the  un- 
lucky clause.  "  In  most  places,"  he  writes,  "  Cathohcs 
are  not  admitted  to  any  office  in  the  State  unless  they  re- 
nounce all  foreign  jurisdiction,  civil  or  ecclesiastical.  .  .  . 
The  Most  Eminent  Cardinal  may  rest  assured  that  the 
greatest  evils  would  be  borne  by  us  rather  than  renounce 
the  divine  authority  of  the  holy  see.  .  .  .  The  Catholic 
body,  however,  think  that  some  favor  should  be  granted  to 
them  by  the  Holy  Father,  necessary  for  their  permanent 
enjoyment  of  the  civil  rights  which  they  now  enjoy.    .    .    . 


268  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [chap.  xvin. 

From  what  I  have  said  and  from  the  framework  of  pubHc 
affairs,  your  Eminence  must  see  how  objectionable  all  for- 
eign jurisdiction  will  be  to  them;  .  .  .  and  we  hope  that 
some  plan  may  be  adopted  by  which  hereafter  an  ecclesi- 
astical superior  may  be  appointed  for  this  country,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  retain  absolutely  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the 
holy  see,  and  at  the  same  time  remove  all  ground  of  object- 
ing to  us,  as  though  we  held  anything  hostile  to  the  national 
independence.  ...  I  know  with  certainty  that  this  fear 
will  increase  if  they  know  that  an  ecclesiastical  superior 
is  so  appointed  as  to  be  removable  from  office  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  Sacred  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide,  or 
any  other  tribunal  out  of  the  country,  or  that  he  has  no 
power  to  admit  any  priest  to  exercise  the  sacred  functions, 
unless  that  Congregation  has  approved  and  sent  him  to 
us."  He  urged  specially  the  removal  of  this  latter  restric- 
tion. Indeed,  so  fearful  was  Carroll  of  difficulties  from 
the  authorities  and  public  opinion  that  he  notified  only  the 
clergy  and  not  the  laity  of  his  appointment. 

Accompanying  this  letter  was  a  "  Relation  on  the  State 
of  Religion  in  the  United  States."  In  Maryland  were 
fifteen  thousand  eight  hundred  Catholics ;  in  Pennsylvania 
seven  hundred;  in  Virginia  two  hundred;  in  New  Yoi'k 
fifteen  hundred ;  in  the  territory  bordering  on  the  Missis- 
sippi many  Catholics,  number  not  ascertainable,  who  were 
destitute  of  priests.  These  were  formerly  under  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec.  "  I  do  not  know,"  writes 
Carroll,  "  whether  he  wishes  to  exercise  any  authority 
there  now  that  all  those  parts  are  subject  to  the  United 
States.  The  small  number  of  priests  is  cause  why  the 
Catholics  here  cannot  attend  worship,  receive  the  sacra- 
ments, hear  the  Word  of  God,  as  frequently  as  they  should 
or  as  is  customary'  in  Europe.  There  are  nineteen  priests 
in  Maryland  and  five  in  Pennsylvania.      They  are  main- 


TRUSTEEISAI.  269 

tained  chiefly  from  the  proceeds  of  the  estates  held  by  the 
clerical  corporation.  There  is  no  ecclesiastical  property 
held  by  the  church  as  such." 

As  prefect,  Carroll  met  in  the  government  of  the  church 
difficulties  which  seemed  impossible  to  master  with  such 
dignity  and  powers  as  lie  had,  and  which  hastened  the 
appointment  of  a  bishop.  The  chief  difficulty  was  trustee- 
ism,  and  the  scene  of  the  trouble  was  New  York.  Since 
the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War  New  York  was  looming 
up  as  an  important  center  of  Catholicit}'.  It  was  at  the 
time  the  capital  of  the  United  States,  and  the  foreign 
ministers,  many  of  whom  were  Catholics,  resided  there, 
thus  giving  a  high  standing  to  the  church.  In  1785  the 
"  Trustees  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  City  of 
New  York  "  were  incorporated,  and  purchased  a  site  on 
Barclay  Street  for  a  church.  These  trustees,  not  content 
to  hold  and  administer  the  church  property,  which  indeed 
was  within  their  powers,  encroached  upon  the  spiritual 
administration,  and  undertook  to  appoint  and  dismiss 
pastors  at  their  will.  They  held  that  the  congregation, 
represented  by  its  trustees,  had  the  right  not  only  to 
choose  its  pastor,  but  to  dismiss  him  at  pleasure;  and  that 
the  ecclesiastical  superior,  bishop  or  prefect,  had  no  right 
to  interfere.  These  assumptions  are  what  is  known  as 
trusteeism. 

"If  ever  such  principles,"  wrote  Carroll  to  the  New- 
York  trustees,  "  should  become  predominant,  the  unity 
and  catholicity  of  our  church  would  be  at  an  end ;  and  it 
would  be  formed  into  distinct  and  independent  societies, 
nearly  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Congregational  PresbA-- 
terians.  Your  misconception  is  that  the  officiating  clergy- 
man at  New  York  is  a  parish  priest,  whereas  there  is  yet 
no  such  office  in  the  United  States.  I  cannot  tell  what 
assistance  the  laws  might  give  you  ;  but  allow  me  to  say 


2  70  THE  KOMAJSf  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xviii. 

that  you  can  take  no  step  so  fatal  to  that  responsibihty 
in  which  as  a  religious  society  you  wish  to  stand,  or  more 
prejudicial  to  the  Catholic  cause."  Meanwhile  the  church 
edifice  in  New  York  had  been  completed,  and  dedicated 
November  4,  i  786.  The  Spanish  minister,  and  the  Span- 
ish residents  of  the  city,  who  furnished  much  of  the  means 
to  build  the  church,  entertained  at  dinner  on  the  occasion 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his  cabinet,  the 
members  of  Congress,  the  governor  of  the  State,  and  the 
representatives  of  the  foreign  powers. 

Nationalism  was  another  difificult}'  that  faced  the  prefect. 
It  was  to  Ireland  mainly  that  Dr.  Carroll  looked  for  re- 
cruits to  the  American  clergy.  In  a  letter  to  Archbishop 
Troy,  of  Dublin,  November  9,  1789,  he  expresses  his  wish 
in  this  regard,  and  adds :  "  But  one  thing  must  be  fully 
impressed  on  their  minds,  that  no  pecuniary  prospects  or 
worldly  comforts  must  enter  into  the  motives  for  their 
crossing  the  Atlantic  to  this  country.  Labor,  hardships 
of  every  kind,  and  particularly  great  scarcity  of  wine, 
especially  out  of  the  towns,  must  be  expected.  Sobriety 
in  drink  is  demanded  from  clergymen  to  a  great  degree. 
That  which  in  many  parts  of  Europe  would  be  esteemed 
no  more  than  a  cheerful  and  allowable  enjoyment  of  a 
friendly  company  would  be  regarded  here  in  our  clergy 
as  an  unbecoming  excess."  However,  at  this  time  it  was 
not  so  much  from  Ireland  as  from  Germany  and  France 
that  came  the  pioneer  clergymen  of  the  American  church, 
and  the  varieties  of  nationality  among  the  clergy,  even  at 
this  early  period,  resulted  in  dissensions.  There  was,  more- 
over, some  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  newcomers  toward 
the  former  members  of  the  suppressed  Society  of  Jesus. 

Worse  still,  it  was  claimed  that  each  nationality  ought 
to  have  its  own  churches  and  priests  selected  by  itself. 
Against   this   movement,  which  made  its   appearance   in 


PETiriox  FOR  A  BIS  nor.  271 

Philadelphia,  Dr.  Carroll  opposed  at  first  strenuous  resist- 
ance ;  but  in  the  course  of  time  he  acknowledged  that 
foreigners  who  did  not  understand  English  were  entitled, 
when  in  sufficient  number,  to  have  a  church  in  .  which 
their  own  language  should  be  used.  For  this  reason  he 
approved  the  opening  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity 
for  Germans  in  Philadelphia,  November,  1789,  the  first 
instance  on  record  of  a  congregation  using  a  language 
different  from  that  of  the  country.  These  troubles  among 
the  clergy  and  the  laity  induced  the  body  of  the  clergy  in 
Maryland  to  petition  (March  18,  1788)  the  holy  see  for  a 
bishop.  The  petition  was  signed  by  John  Carroll,  Robert 
Molyneux,  and  John  Ashton.  In  a  meeting  (November, 
1786)  in  which,  at  the  instigation  of  Dr.  Carroll,  steps 
were  taken  in  the  project  of  a  college — the  beginnings  of 
Georgetown  College-^it  had  been  decided  that  a  bishop 
was  required  by  the  wants  of  the  American  church.  But 
these  views  came  to  naught  at  the  time  because  of  the 
resistance  of  some  of  the  clergymen.  The  opponents, 
however,  who  up  to  the  present  had  stood  out  against  the 
appointment  of  a  bishop,  now  yielded,  in  view  of  the  dan- 
gers that  threatened  the  church. 

"  To  omit  other  very  grave  reasons,"  states  the  petition, 
"  we  experience  more  and  more,  in  the  constitution  of  this 
very  free  Republic,  that  if  there  are,  even  among  the  min- 
isters of  the  sanctuary,  any  men  of  indocile  mind,  and 
chafing  under  ecclesiastical  discipline,  they  allege  as  an 
excuse  for  their  license  and  disobedience  that  they  are 
bound  to  obey  bishops  exercising  their  own  authority,  and 
not  a  mere  priest  exercising  any  vicarious  jurisdiction. 
This  was  the  boast  of  the  men  who  recently  at  New  York 
sought  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  authority,  and  alleged 
this  pretext,  which  seemed  most  likely  to  catch  the  favor 
of  Protestants,  contending  that   the   authority  of  the  ec- 


2  72  THE   ROMAN   CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xviii. 

clesiastical  superior  whom  the  Sacred  Congregation  had 
appointed  was  forbidden  by  law,  because  it  not  only 
emanates  from  a  foreign  tribunal,  but  is  also  dependent 
on  it  for  its  duration  and  exercise."  The  holy  see  acted 
promptl)-  on  this  petition,  and  Cardinal  Antonelli,  b)^  letter 
of  July  12,  1788,  informed  Dr.  Carroll  that  permission  was 
given  to  the  priests  on  the  mission  to  select  the  city,  and, 
for  this  case  only,  to  name  the  candidate  for  presentation 
to  the  Pope.  There  were  twenty-six  priests  entitled  to 
vote ;  Baltimore  was  chosen  for  the  see,  and  twenty-four 
votes  were  given  to  Dr.  Carroll  as  the  candidate.  All  this 
was  ratified  by  the  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda  on 
September  14th,  and  the  necessary  bull  was  issued  No- 
vember 6,  1 789.  When  the  news  reached  England, 
Thomas  Weld,  of  Lulworth  Castle,  a  personal  friend  of 
Carroll,  invited  him  to  allow  the  ceremony  of  consecration 
to  take  place  in  his  private  chapel.  Carroll  accepted  the 
invitation,  sailed  for  England  in  the  summer  of  i  790,  and 
was  consecrated,  August  15th,  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Charles 
Walmesley,  senior  Vicar  Apostolic  of  England. 

If  great  events  were  taking  place  at  this  time  in  the 
sphere  of  religion,  events  no  less  important  were  happen- 
ing in  the  sphere  of  politics.  The  convention  that  met  in 
Philadelphia,  May,  1789,  laid  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  the  broad  and  deep  foundations  of  religious 
equality  by  the  sixth  article,  abolishing  religious  tests  as  a 
qualification  for  any  office  or  public  trust ;  and  the  first 
Congress  in  the  same  year  affirmed  the  incompetency  of 
the  federal  government  in  religion  by  the  passing  of  the 
first  amendment :  "  Congress  shall  make  no  laws  respect- 
ing an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free 
exercise  thereof."  In  bringing  about  those  wise  enact- 
ments Dr.  Carroll  had  no  small  share.  He  drew  up  a 
memorial  to  Congress,  representing  the  necessity  of  some 


ADDRESS    TO    IVASIIINGTOX.  2/3 

constitutional  provision  for  tlie  protection  and  maintenance 
of  civil  and  religious  freedom,  for  which  so  much  blood 
and  treasure  had  been  spent.  Through  the  influence  of 
Washington  the  memorial  was  favorably  received ;  he, 
more  than  any  other  man,  brought  about  the  happy  result. 
The  States — some  freely  and  at  once,  others  reluctantly 
and  after  some  delay — agreed  to  the  clauses,  and  thus  the 
penal  period  for  Catholicity  closed  forever,  ne\er  to  be 
reopened  so  long  as  the  Constitution  retains  the  respect 
and  love,  and  remains  the  chart,  of  this  land. 

The  grateful  Catholics  presented  to  Washington,  after 
his  election  to  the  Presidency  (1789),  an  address  signed 
by  Bishop  Carroll  on  behalf  of  the  clergy,  by  Charles 
Carroll,  Daniel  Carroll,  Dominick  Lynch,  Thomas  Fitz- 
simons,  signers  of  the  Declaration,  of  Independence,  on 
behalf  of  the  laity,  to  which  "  the  father  of  his  country  " 
made  a  reply  that  is  among  the  classics  of  the  land  and 
one  of  its  most  precious  heirlooms.  It  is  a  singular,  not 
to  say  providential,  coincidence  that  Washington  and  Car- 
roll came  to  their  offices  at  the  same  time  (Washington 
was  inaugurated  April  30,  i  789 ;  Carroll  was  consecrated 
August  15,  1790),  and  that  our  political  organization  was 
fully  fashioned  in  the  very  year  that  our  church  organiza- 
tion was  perfected ;  coincidence  emblematic  of  that  amity 
ijnd  concord  that  have  hitherto  existed  between  the  church 
and  the  republic — amity  and  concord  which,  instead  of 
being  obliterated,  are  emphasized  by  the  clean-cut  distinc- 
tion made  in  our  fundamental  law  between  the  two 
spheres,  the  political  and  the  religious. 


BOOK    II.     THE    ORGANIZED    CHURCH. 

I  DIVIDE  this  portion  of  my  work  into  four  parts,  basing 
the  division  on  prominent  facts  proportionately  spaced: 
first  part,  from  the  consecration  of  Carroll  (1790)  to  the 
First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  (1829);  second  part, 
from  the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  (1829)  to 
the  P"irst  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  (1852);  third  part, 
from  the  First  Plenary  Council  (1852)  to  the  Second 
Plenary  Council  (1866);  fourth  part,  from  the  Second 
Plenary  Council  (1866)  to  the  establishment  of  the  Apos- 
tolic Delegation  (1893). 

If  I  were  asked  to  characterize  each  one  of  those  four 
periods  by  some  prominent  event  within  them,  I  should 
say  that  the  first  (i  790-1829)  is  the  period  of  trusteeism ; 
that  the  second  (1829-52)  is  the  period  of  native  Ameri- 
canism; that  the  third  (1852-66)  is  the  period  of  the  Civil 
War;  that  the  fourth  (1866-93)  is  the  period  of  centen- 
nials. Of  this  latter  part  I  shall  have  little  to  say,  for 
obvious  reasons.  , 

The  Catholic  Church  is  papal  in  its  head,  hence  a  gen- 
eral history  of  the  church  resolves  itself  into  a  history  of 
the  papacy  ;  but  in  its  body  the  church  is  episcopal  and 
sacerdotal,  hence  the  particular  history  of  the  church  in 
any  one  country  resolves  itself  into  an  account  of  the 
development  and  administration  of  the  episcopate  in  that 
country.  The  narrative  of  the  following  pages  is  the 
growth  of  the  hierarchy,  implying  a  corresponding  expan- 
sion of  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  in  the  United  States. 

274 


Part  I.  The  Growth  of  the  Church  from  the 

Beginning  of  tme  Hierarchy  to  the  First 

Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore 

(i  790-1829). 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

THE    EPISCOPATE    OF    CARROLL  (179O-1815). 

The  return  of  Bishop  Carroll  from  England  to  Baltimore 
(December,  1 790)  was  marked  by  a  reception  that  was 
like  a  triumph.  And  truly  there  was  good  reason  for 
rejoicing,  since  the  young  church  in  the  United  States 
was  in  a  much  better  condition  than  the  parent  church  in 
England,  that  still  remained  under  the  government  of 
Vicars  Apostolic.  A  diocesan  clergy  is  not  less  necessary 
to  the  life  and  growth  of  a  church  than  a  hierarchy.  The 
older  missionaries  in  the  colonies,  mostly  members  of  the 
suppressed  Society  of  Jesus,  were  fast  passing  away.  One 
of  the  first  cares  of  the  new  bishop  was  to  supply  their 
places,  if  possible,  with  a  native  clergy.  For  priests  from 
abroad,  of  many  nationalities,  tongues,  customs,  habits, 
and  trainings,  could  not  but  impe)rt  into  the  nascent 
church  varieties  and  antagonisms  that  might  impair  its 
growth,  especially  at  a  time  when  immigration  was  not 
the  mighty  flood  it  became  afterward,  when  the  Catholic 
population  was  essentially  one  as  to  nationality,  and  the 
field  to  which  the  church  looked  for  increase  was  a  non- 
275 


2/6  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

Catholic  body  whose  language  was  English  and  whose 
spirit  was  American. 

Meanwhile  God,  who  knows  how  to  draw  good  out  of 
evil,  made  the  Revolution  in  France  serve  his  purposes  for 
the  church  in  the  United  States.  Fleeing"  from  ihe  perse- 
cution which  was  foreseen  in  1 790  and  broke  out  with 
terrific  fury  a  few  years  later,  some  priests  of  the  congre- 
gation of  St.  Sulpice,  Paris,  France,  came  to  Baltimore,  at 
the  invitation  of  Bishop  Carroll,  and  established  in  1791 
the  ecclesiastical  seminary  which  since  that  time  has  been 
a  fruitful  nursery  of  good  and  great  ecclesiastics.  Here 
was  the  possibility  of  solving  the  question  of  a  native 
diocesan  clergy  ;  a  few  short  years  would  bring  the  com- 
plete solution,  when  the  stream  of  young  priests  would 
begin  to  flow  from  the  newly  founded  seminary. 

The  diocese  of  Baltimore  in  1790  comprised  all  of  our 
present  States  east  of  the  Mississippi,  with  the  exception 
of  a  district  around  New  Orleans,  of  Florida,  and  of  the 
country  in  the  neighborhood  of  Detroit,  which  was  still  in 
dispute  between  the  United  States  and  England.  Those 
excepted  parts  were,  as  to  the  South,  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Bishop  of  Havana,  as  to  the  North,  under  that 
of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec.  Within  the  diocese  of  Baltimore 
thus  delimited  there  were  about  thirty-five  priests  and 
thirty  churches,  with  a  number  of  outlying  stations  visited 
^from  time  to  time  by  the  nearest  clergymen.  The  most 
remarkable  among  the  priests,  because  the  first  convert  to 
take  orders,  was  the  Rev.  John  Thayer,  in  charge  of  the 
church  in  Boston.  He  was  a  native  of  that  city.  His 
conversion  from  Protestantism  was  brought  about  by  an 
investigation  he  made  while  in  Rome  of  the  miracles 
attributed  to  St.  Benedict  Labre.  Though  a  man  of  great 
talent  and  blameless  life,  the  Rev.  John  Thayer  was  by  no 
means  a  success  as  an  administrator  and  a  leader  of  men. 


]-isrr  TO  BOSTOX.  277 

Difficulties  that  arose  in  Boston  necessitated  a  visit  of 
the  bishop  to  that  city  in  the  spring  of  1791.  We  refer 
to  the  visit  mainly  because  of  the  reception  with  which 
he  met ;  it  proves  how  highly  he  was  esteemed  and  how 
quickly  Puritan  prejudice  was  passing  away,  the  result, 
no  doubt,  of  the  patriotism  displayed  by  Catholics  in  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  of  the  spirit  of  tolerance  that  the 
Constitution  had  created  throughout  the  land.  "  It  is 
wonderful,"  he  writes,  "to  tell  what  great  civilities  have 
been  done  to  me  in  this  town,  where  a  few  years  ago  a 
popish  priest  was  thought  to  be  the  greatest  monster  in 
creation.  Many  here,  even  of  their  principal  people,  have 
acknowledged  to  me  that  they  would  have  crossed  to  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street  rather  than  meet  a  Roman 
Catholic  some  time  ago.  The  horror  which  was  associated 
with  the  idea  of  a  papist  is  incredible ;  and  the  scandalous 
misrepresentations  by  their  ministers  increased  the  horror 
every  Sunday.  If  all  the  Catholics  here  were  united, 
their  number  would  be  about  one  hundred  and  twenty." 
North  of  Boston  were  the  Catholic  Indians  of  Maine,  who 
persevered,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  any  missionary,  in 
the  faith  preached  to  them  by  the  early  Jesuits.  At  their 
request  Bishop  Carroll  sent  them  a  priest,  the  Rev.  Francis 
Ciquard,  one  of  the  Sulpitians  who  had  come  to  Baltimore. 

Next  to  the  establishment  of  a  seminary  the  convening 
of  his  widely  scattered  clergy  in  a  diocesan  synod  was 
considered  by  the  bishop  to  be  of  the  highest  importance. 
The  synod  was  opened  on  the  7th  of  November,  1791. 
This  assembly,  the  first  of  the  kind  in  the  country,  had 
great  influence  in  shaping  our  church  legislation.  On  this 
occasion  there  gathered  about  the  Bishop  of  Baltimore 
some  twenty  priests,  representing  no  less  than  five  nation- 
alities. The  synod  discussed  the  appointment  of  a  coad- 
jutor.     It  was  felt  that  a  bishop  should  be,  so  to  say,  in 


2  78  l^HE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

permanence,  because,  in  case  of  the  death  of  the  ordinary, 
the  distance  from  Rome  and  the  slowness  of  communica- 
tion in  those  days  might  leave  the  church  in  a  long  and 
disastrous  widowhood.  Fortunately,  too,  Rome,  for  the 
sake  of  unity  of  discipline,  favored  the  appointment  of  a 
coadjutor  rather  than  a  division  of  territory  and  the  erec- 
tion of  a  new  diocese. 

The  bishop  was  instructed  by  the  holy  see  to  choose  a 
subject,  with  the  advice  of  his  older  priests,  to  be  presented 
to  the  Pope.  Accordingly  the  Rev.  Lawrence  Graessel,  a 
German,  was  chosen,  and  his  name  forwarded  to  Rome. 
He  did  not  live,  however,  to  bear  the  honor;  the  yellow 
fever,  which  raged  along  the  coast  in  i  793,  carried  him  off. 
His  selection  is  evidence  that  Carroll's  Americanism  was  not 
of  the  narrow  sort,  and  was  not  blind  to  merit,  wherever 
it  might  be.  A  second  choice  fell  on  the  Rev.  Leonard 
Neale,  a  native  of  Maryland.  The  appointment  was  ap- 
proved by  the  holy  see  in  April,  1795,  and  the  bulls  were 
issued  and  expedited  at  the  time ;  but  owing  to  the  troub- 
lous times  in  Europe,  they  did  not  reach  Baltimore  until 
January,  1801. 

One  of  the  topics  that  engaged  the  deliberations  of  the 
synod,  and  occupied  a  large  place  in  the  pastoral  letter 
issued  by  the  bishop  after  its  close,  was  the  support  of  the 
churches  and  the  clergy.  As  we  have  seen,  in  the  colo- 
nial days  the  properties  of  the  Jesuits  bore  this  burden,  and 
no  appeals  were  made  to  the  generosity  of  the  faithful  in 
Maryland.  But  it  was  foreseen  that  immigration  would 
soon  bring  into  the  States  many  CathoHcs  from  Europe, 
and,  moreover,  the  new  recruits  to  the  clergy  were  shut 
off  from  any  participation  in  the  revenues  from  the  lands 
of  the  earlier  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  missions.  It 
became  necessary,  therefore,  to  impress  on  the  people  the 
duty  of  giving  \'oluntary  support  to  religion.      Carroll  was 


7'RUSTEKISM.  2'i<^ 

the  first  to  preach  this  duty,  which  since  his  time  has  be- 
come the  glory  and  the  strength  of  the  American  church, 
and  tlie  subject  of  unfaihng  wonder  to  the  state-endowed 
churches  of  Europe.  In  colonial  mission  times  the  services 
of  the  church,  held  for  the  most  part  in  small  chapels 
attached  to  the  residences  of  the  Jesuits  or  the  manorial 
houses  of  the  richer  colonists,  were  simple  in  the  extreme. 
The  arrival  of  priests  who  had  witnessed  the  gorgeous 
ceremonial  of  the  church  in  France,  Germany,  and  other 
lands  untouched  by  penal  laws,  changed  this  simplicity 
of  the  early  days,  and  the  services  began  to  improve  in 
solemnity. 

Synod,  coadjutorship,  voluntary  support,  solemnity  of 
service,  though  but  premonitory  signs  of  a  later  glorious 
development,  were  in  the  line  of  progress.  Contempo- 
raneous with  them  appeared  in  many  cities,  and  notably  in 
Philadelphia,  a  movement  which  was  to  be  for  many  years 
the  bane  of  our  young  church — schism  issuing  from  trus- 
teeism.  The  Rev.  Father  John  Nepomucene  Goetz  was 
assistant  to  Father  Helbron  in  the  Church  of  the  Hol\- 
Trinity,  Philadelphia.  Intriguing  with  the  trustees,  Goetz 
got  them  to  expel  the  legitimate  pastor,  and  to  elect  and 
recognize  himself  instead.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  bishop 
suspended  and  excommunicated  the  usurper.  The  trustees 
upheld  him,  rejected  the  authority  of  the  Pope  "  as  of 
foreign  jurisdiction,"  and  maintained  in  court,  into  which 
they  brought  the  case,  that  as  Germans  they  were  outside 
of  his  jurisdiction,  and  that  he  was  the  bishop  of  the  other 
nationalities  only.  It  was  in  vain  that  Carroll  appealed  to 
them  in  letters  of  the  greatest  forbearance  and  charity  ; 
they  turned  a  deaf  ear,  would  recognize  no  bishop  but  one 
of  their  own  race,  and  claimed  the  right  to  give,  by  the 
very  fact  of  choice  and  nomination  by  themselves,  juris- 
diction to  their  pastors.      It  was   only  in    1802  that   the\- 


28o  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

were  induced  to  end  the  schism  by  an  explicit  recognition 
of  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  of  Baltimore. 

A  similar  trouble  was  caused  in  Baltimore  by  Germans 
and  a  German  priest,  who  claimed  to  have  powers  from 
Rome  to  set  up  a  church  independent  of  the  bishop,  and 
got  up  a  petition  to  the  holy  see  to  erect  in  the  United 
States  a  German  diocese  for  Germans.  Accordingly  they 
built  St.  John's  Church,  ran  it  without  any  authorization, 
and  forcibly  prevented  the  entrance  of  the  bishop.  Car- 
roll, to  settle  the  question  once  for  all,  obtained  from  the 
court  a  mandamus  to  compel  the  trustees  to  receive  him. 
Their  defense  was  that  the  members  of  a  church  had  the 
sole  and  exclusive  right  of  nominating  and  appointing  the 
pastor;  that  no  other  person,  whether  bishop  or  Pope,  had 
the  right  to  appoint  a  pastor  without  the  assent  or  appro- 
bation of  the  congregation.  This  plea  was  based  on  no 
laws  of  the  church  that  they  could  produce,  and  the  case 
was  decided  against  them  in  May,  1805. 

Meanwhile  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  was  extending  day 
by  day,  and  the  laborers  were  presenting  themselves  rap- 
idly for  the  doing  of  the  work.  The  Sulpitians  were  not 
only  teaching  and  training  the  future  clergy  of  America 
in  the  seminary  of  Baltimore,  but  also  were  acting  as 
missionaries  in  Maryland,  in  New  England  among  the 
Indians,  and  in  the  West  among  the  descendants  of  the 
early  French  colonists  and  the  miserable  remnants  of  the 
Illinois  tribes.  The  Augustinians  were  beginning  their 
glorious  career  of  apostolate  in  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania. 
The  Dominicans  were  preserving  the  work  of  the  early 
missionaries  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  were  completing 
the  Church  of  St.  Peter.  The  surviving  Jesuits,  who  had 
continued  in  the  American  field  as  diocesan  priests  of 
Baltimore,  were  following  the  while  with  wistful  eyes  and 
anxious  hearts  the  fortunes  of  the  small  band  of  refugees 


RESTORATION   OR   THE   JESUITS.  28  I 

under  the  protection  of  Elizabeth  of  Russia,  who  kept  ali\  e 
the  hopes  and  spirit  of  the  suppressed  society.  When 
appeared  in  March,  1801,  the  bull  of  Pius  VII.,  Catho- 
licce  Fidei,  recognizing  the  society  as  then  preserved  and 
existing  in  Russia,  the  American  ex-Jesuits  sought  to 
connect  themselves  with  it,  received  recruits  from  Russia, 
reopened  their  novitiate  in  Georgetown  (1806),  and  entered 
again  into  possession  of  the  properties  held  by  the  clerical 
association  which  had  been  formed  in  Maryland  after  their 
suppression  for  the  purpose  of  securing  what  the  society 
had  possessed  in  the  English  colonies. 

Other  priests  were  coming  year  by  year  to  Carroll's  help 
from  France,  Germany,  and  Ireland.  On  the  18th  of  March, 
1795,  Bishop  Carroll  raised  to  the  priesthood  a  student  of 
the  seminary  of  Baltimore  who  was  known  throughout  his 
missionary  career  as  Father  Smith,  the  Anglicized  form 
of  Schmidt.  But  he  was  none  other  than  the  Russian 
Prince  Dmitri  Gallitzin,  son  of  Prince  Dmitri  Alexievitch 
Gallitzin  and  the  Countess  Amalia  yon  Schmettau.  He 
abandoned  the  religion  and  the  military  or  diplomatic  ser- 
vice of  Russia  to  which  his  birth  destined  him  for  the 
Church  of  Rome  and  the  missions  of  America.  His  priestly 
labors  were  begun  at  Conewago,  whence  he  extended 
his  visits  to  Taneytown,  Hagerstown,  and  Cumberland  in 
Maryland,  to  Chambersburg  and  Huntingdon  in  Penn- 
sylvania. 

Likewise  the  field  was  extending.  In  the  State  of  New 
York,  between  Albany  and  Fort  Stanwix  on  the  Mohawk, 
there  were  four  hundred  Catholic  families  ;  and  in  Septem- 
ber, 1797,  the  corner-stone  of  the  first  Catholic  church  in 
Albany  was  laid.  In  New  England  two  remarkable  men, 
both  French,  were  giving  to  Catholicity  an  impulse  wliich 
has  gone  on  increasing  to  our  days:  the  Rev.  Francis  A. 
Matignon  and  the  Rev.  John  Cheverus.      From  their  re- 


2  82  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

ports  we  find  that  in  the  year  1 798  the  Cathohcs  in  all 
New  England  were:  in  Boston,  210;  in  Plymouth,  15  ;  in 
Newburyport,  21;  in  Salem,  3;  in  Maine,  the  Penobscot 
tribe  of  Indians  300,  the  Passamaquoddy  150.  At  Hart- 
ford the  Rev.  John  Thayer  had  officiated  for  a  few  Cath- 
olics in  1 790,  and  for  a  time  the  Rev.  John  Ambrose  Souge 
resided  there  as  chaplain  to  Vicomte  de  Sibert-Cornillon. 
In  all  New  England  there  was  no  building  worthy  the 
name  of  church  until  Dr.  Matignon,  in  1800,  began  the 
erection  of  one,  eighty-one  by  fifty-eight  feet,  on  Franklin 
Street  in  Boston,  to  the  building  of  which  John  Adams, 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  other  Protestant  gentle- 
men, gave  generous  contributions. 

Respected  as  were  the  two  French  priests,  Matignon 
and  Cheverus,  for  their  admirable  qualities,  it  was  only  as 
individuals,  not  as  ministers  of  a  barely  tolerated  religion. 
Two  occurrences  prove  that  the  spirit  that  dictated  the 
penal  legislation  of  the  colonial  days  was  not  quite  exor- 
cised. Cheverus  had  married  two  Catholics  in  Maine. 
Now  Maine  at  the  time  w^as  annexed  to  Massachusetts, 
and  the  law  of  the  latter  colony  prohibited  marriage  except 
by  a  minister  or  a  justice  of  the  peace.  Although  Chev- 
erus, after  the  religious  ceremony,  sent  the  parties  to  the 
justice  of  the  peace  to  have  the  marriage  ratified,  he  was 
dragged  before  the  court  first  in  a  criminal  action,  with 
the  result  of  a  verdict  of  not  guilty,  thus  escaping  the 
pillory  ;  then  in  a  civil  action  immediately  afterward,  which 
for  some  reason  or  other  never  came  to  a  hearing.  But  it 
was  generally  held  that  the  constitution  of  the  common- 
wealth did  not  recognize  Catholic  priests  as  empowered  to 
marry,  because  the  word  "  Protestant  "  was  to  be  under- 
stood before  the  word  "  minister." 

The  other  occurrence  is  stated  thus  by  Father  Cheverus : 
"  Mr.  Kavanagh,  a   respectable    merchant    living  at   New 


TENURE    OE  CHURCH  PROPERTY.  283 

Castle,  in  the  county  of  Lincoln,  district  of  Maine,  has 
fitted  up  at  his  own  expense  a  small  neat  chapel,  and  with 
his  partner,  Mr.  CoLtril,  has  subscribed  one  thousand  dol- 
lars for  our  new  church.  He  thought  in  consequence  he 
would  be  free  from  paying  taxes  to  the  Congregational 
minister  of  his  township ;  but  the  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  now  sitting  in  Boston  declared  unanimously  that  he 
must  pay  for  the  support  of  the  said  minister,  even  if  he 
had  a  priest  always  residing  with  him.  The  constitution 
obliges  every  one  to  contribute  for  the  support  of  Prot- 
estant ministers,  and  them  alone.  Papists  are  only  toler- 
ated, and  as  long  as  their  ministers  behave  well  they  shall 
not  be  disturbed ;  but  let  them  expect  no  more  than  that." 

Another  lawsuit  with  a  different  ending  deserves  to  be 
recorded.  The  Rev.  Theodore  Brouwers  had  been  in 
charge  of  the  missions  of  Westmoreland  County,  Penns}'l- 
vania.  Before  his  death,  which  happened  in  1 788,  he 
bought  a  farm  known  as  "  Sportsman's  Hall,"  and  left  it 
by  will  to  "  the  Catholic  priest  who  should  succeed  him  in 
the  said  place,  and  the  priest  shall  transmit  the  land  so 
left  him  to  his  successor."  A  certain  German  Franciscan, 
Father  Francis  Fromm,  without  any  authorization  from 
the  bishop,  left  his  appointed  field  of  labor  to  go  to  West- 
moreland County  and  assume  control  of  the  estate,  cooll}- 
informing  the  bishop  that  he  had  been  chosen  by  the 
congregation  and  that  he  was  in  possession.  A  lawsuit 
followed,  not  between  the  bishop  and  the  intruder,  but 
between  the  intruder  and  the  congregation,  who  soon  tired 
of  him  and  sought  to  oust  him  from  the  property.  The 
jury  gave  a  verdict  against  the  intruding  priest  under  the 
following  charge  of  the  judge  of  Common  Pleas  of  the 
Fifth  Circuit  of  Pennsylvania: 

"  The  Bishop  of  Baltimore  has,  and  before  and  at  the 
time  of  Fromm's  taking  possession  of  the  estate  had,  the 


284  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

sole  episcopal  authority  over  the  Cathohc  Church  of  the 
United  States.  Every  Catholic  congregation  within  the 
United  States  is  subject  to  his  inspection,  and  without 
authority  from  him  no  Catholic  priest  can  exercise  any 
pastoral  functions  over  any  congregation  in  the  United 
States.  Without  his  appointment  or  permission  to  exer- 
cise pastoral  functions  over  this  congregation,  no  priest 
can  be  entitled  under  the  will  of  Brouwers  to  claim  the 
enjoyment  of  this  estate.  Fromm  had  no  such  appoint- 
ment or  permission,  and  is  therefore  incompetent  to  dis- 
charge the  duties  or  enjoy  the  benefits  which  are  the 
objects  of  the  will  of  Brouwers."  This  was  the  first  case 
of  the  kind  that  came  before  a  civil  tribunal  in  the  United 
States ;  it  established  in  the  courts  the  authority  of  a 
Roman  Catholic  bishop  in  the  government  of  the  church 
and  in  the  holding  of  church  property.  The  property  in 
litigation  has  since  become  the  site  of  the  great  Benedic- 
tine Abbey  of  St.  Vincent. 

The  growing  city  of  Pittsburg  stood  where  w^as  once 
Fort  Du  Quesne.  As  yet  no  church  was  there,  and  the 
few  Catholics  of  the  place  received  only  the  occasional 
ministrations  of  the  missionaries  traveling  to  the  farther 
West ;  for  the  Ohio  was  then  the  highway  to  the  missions 
on  the  Mississippi,  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  and  in  the 
new  settlements  of  Kentucky.  In  1783  a  strong  move- 
ment of  emigration  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  lands  w^est 
of  the  Alleghanies  commenced.  Even  as  early  as  1774 
Catholics  from  Maryland  set  out  for  Kentucky :  twenty- 
five  families  settled  on  Pottinger's  Creek  in  1785;  the 
next  year  another  party  settled  on  Hardin's  Creek ;  and 
in  1787  a  cluster  of  Catholic  families  made  their  home 
at  Bardstown.  At  first  these  settlements  received  but 
occasional  visits  of  priests,  as  of  the  Carmelite,  Rev.  Paul 
de  St.  Pierre,  in   i  784,  of  the  Dominican,  Father  William 


THE    CHURCH  IN  KEXTi'CKY.  285 

de  Rohan,  who  in  1787  erected  the  Church  of  the  Holy- 
Cross  at  Pottinger's  Creek,  the  cradle  of  CathoHcity  in 
Kentucky,  and  of  Rev.  Charles  Whelan,  in  i  790. 

To  this  derelict  portion  of  his  diocese  Bishop  Carroll 
sent,  in  1793,  the  Rev.  Stephen  Badin,  who  had  come 
from  France  as  a  seminarian  in  1 792,  and  had  been  or- 
dained in  Baltimore  May  25,  1793,  the  first  seminarian  to 
receive  holy  orders  in  the  United  States.  For  three  years 
this  young  missionary  labored  all  alone  amid  appalling 
difficulties,  but  with  an  energy  and  zeal  that  nothing  could 
relax.  He  received  an  auxiliary  (i  797)  in  the  Rev.  Michael 
Fournier,  who  died  in  1803  ;  in  the  Rev.  Anthony  Salmon 
(1799),  who  died  very  soon  after;  and  in  the  Re\'. 
John  Thayer,  who  retired  from  the  field  of  American  mis- 
sions (1803)  and  went  to  England,  where  he  died.  In 
July,  1805,  there  came  to  the  help  of  Badin  in  Kentucky 
a  Belgian  priest  whose  name  has  become  famous  in  the 
history  of  Western  Catholicity,  the  Rev.  Charles  Nerinok. 
He  arrived  in  Baltimore  October,  1804,  and  was  at  once 
assigned  to  work  in  the  West.  These  two  missionaries 
not  only  labored  among  the  Catholic  settlements  of  Ken- 
tucky, where  four  humble  churches,  log  and  frame,  were 
erected  by  them,  but  also  pushed  their  journeys  as  far 
as  Vincennes,  which  was  then  without  a  priest.  In  1806 
Father  Fenwick,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  purchased  a 
plantation  of  five  hundred  acres  near  Springfield,  Washing- 
ton County,  Ky.,  was  joined  by  some  fellow-religious  the 
year  following,  and  erected  the  Church  of  St.  Rose  of 
Lima.  In  1806  a  novitiate  was  opened  near  by,  which 
became  the  cradle  of  the  Dominican  order  in  the  United 
States.  Farther  south,  on  the  Mississippi,  Natchez  and 
Vicksburg,  which  had  been  lately  relinquished  by  Spain 
to  the  United  States,  came  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Bishop 
Carroll,  and,  at  a  request  made  by   him  to  the  Spanish 


286  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

Bishop  of  New  Orleans,  Rt.  Rev.  Louis  Penalver,  were 
attended  to  by  the  nearest  Spanish  clergyman. 

When  Jay's  treaty  (1796)  put  an  end  to  the  occupancy 
by  England  of  Michigan  and  other  Northwestern  points, 
Bishop  Carroll  found  his  burden  increased  by  the  duty  of 
providing  priests  for  this  new  accession,  as  well  as  for  the 
missions  along  the  Mississippi  formerly  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec.  The  latter  at  once  recalled 
to  Canada  the  priests  who  had  been  laboring  in  this  dis- 
trict. Father  Gibault,  the  "patriot  priest"  of  the  West, 
had  retired  in  1791  from  the  French  missions  to  the  Span- 
ish territory  across  the  Mississippi.  Thus  by  the  year 
1796  the  region  that  is  now  Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio,  and 
Michigan,  and  was  known  then  as  the  Northwest  Territory, 
was  left  on  the  hands  of  Bishop  Carroll  without  a  resident 
priest.  Fortunately  the  Sulpitians,  just  arrived  in  Balti- 
more in  greater  number  than  the  work  of  the  seminary 
needed,  came  to  the  rescue.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Levadoux 
labored  at  Kaskaskia  from  1793  to  1795,  and  after  him 
the  Rev.  Gabriel  Richard  till  1 796.  In  1 799  the  Rev. 
John  Olivier  was  stationed  at  Cahokia,  and  his  brother, 
the  Rev.  Donatien  Olivier,  at  Kaskaskia  and  Prairie  du 
Rocher.  The  Rev.  Benedict  Joseph  Flaget,  the  future 
Bishop  of  Bardstown,  arrived  at  Vincermes  in  December, 
1792.  He  found  for  a  church  "  a  very  poor  log  building, 
open  to  the  weather  and  almost  tottering.  The  congrega- 
tion was,  if  possible,  in  a  still  more  miserable  condition. 
Out  of  nearly  seven  hundred  souls,  only  twelve  could  be 
induced  to  approach  holy  communion  during  the  Christ- 
mas festivities." 

This  description  might  be  applied  to  all  the  Canadian 
missions  of  the  West.  The  uncertainties  created  in  the 
ecclesiastical  government  of  these  far-away  posts  by  the 
Revolutionary   War,   and   its   consequent   changes  in   the 


THE    WEST  AND    THE   SOUTH.  28? 

civil  and  religious  spheres,  had  produced  a  great  neglect 
in  the  practice,  and  even  some  falling  off  in  the  profession, 
of  the  faith.  To  Father  Flaget,  obliged  by  ill  health  to 
return  to  Baltimore,  succeeded,  in  1 796,  the  Rev.  John 
Francis  Rivet.  This  zealous  missionary's  labors  were 
ended  by  his  saintly  death  at  Vincennes  in  the  winter  of 
1804.  In  1796  the  Rev.  Mr.  Levadoux  took  charge  of 
the  church  of  Detroit,  from  which  the  Bishop  of  Quebec 
had  recalled  the  former  incumbent ;  and  to  his  aid  was 
sent  the  Rev.  Gabriel  Richard  and  the  Rev.  John  Dilhet. 
After  Mr.  Levadoux's  recall  to  France  by  his  superiors 
in  1 80 1,  Father  Richard  became  the  pastor  of  Detroit. 
Father  Dilhet's  field  of  labor  extended  from  Sandusky  to 
St.  Joseph  River  at  the  head  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  as 
far  south  as  Fort  Wayne.  From  Detroit  and  Sandusky 
the  two  zealous  missionaries  paid  occasional  visits  to 
Mackinaw,  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  and  other  Northwestern  posts 
where  were  to  be  found  the  fast-decaying  descendants  of 
former  Canadians  and  of  Catholic  Indians. 

In  the  South  the  Rev.  John  Dubois,  another  of  the 
French  pioneer  priests,  who  became  afterward  Bishop  of 
New  York,  visted  Richmond,  Va.,  in  1791,  gathered  to- 
gether the  few  Catholics  of  the  city,  and  held  services  in 
one  of  the  rooms  of  the  capitol.  But  he  did  not  remain 
long  there,  and  for  many  years  only  fitful  visits  were  made 
to  the  faithful  of  the  present  episcopal  see  of  Virginia. 
Before  the  year  1799  a  church  was  begun  in  Norfolk,  but 
here,  as  elsewhere,  trusteeism  held  sway  and  retarded  the 
progress  of  religion.  Alexandria  had  a  log  chapel  from 
colonial  days.  In  1 796  a  better  church  w^as  begun  on 
ground  donated  by  a  Protestant  gentleman  ;  but  it  was 
never  completed,  as  the  site  was  considered  to  be  too  dis- 
tant from  the  center  of  the  town.  Father  Leonard  Neale 
at  first  attended  this  congregation  from  Georgetown.      It 


288  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

was  only  in  1805  that  it  began  to  have  a  resident  clergy- 
man. 

About  the  year  i  786  a  vessel  bound  for  South  America 
put  into  the  port  of  Charleston,  S.  C.  A  priest  was  on 
board.  At  the  request  of  a  few  Catholics  who  heard  of  this 
welcome  arrival,  he  celebrated  mass  in  the  house  of  an  Irish 
citizen  before  a  congregation  of  twelve  persons.  In  1788 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Ryan  was  sent  there  by  Bishop  Carroll. 
After  two  years'  labor,  when  ill  health  compelled  him  to 
retire,  he  had  succeeded  in  getting  together  a  flock  of  two 
hundred  souls,  most  of  whom  up  to  that  time  had  kept 
their  religion  concealed.  They  worshiped  in  a  half- ruined 
meeting-house  which  they  hired.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Keating, 
who  succeeded  Father  Ryan,  withdrew  discouraged  at  the 
end  of  a  few  months.  The  next  incumbent,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Gallagher,  was  a  detriment  rather  than  an  aid  to  the  church 
by  his  unclerical  life.  In  vain  did  Bishop  Carroll  try  to 
get  him  to  resign ;  the  refractory  priest  appealed  to  Rome 
and  went  thither  to  argue  his  case.  On  his  return  he 
drove  from  the  altar  the  priest.  Rev.  Mr.  Le  Mercier, 
whom  the  bishop  had  sent  to  assume  charge  of  the  parish. 
The  trustees  took  sides  with  Gallagher,  though  he  was 
suspended  by  his  ordinary,  and  Le  Mercier  was  compelled 
to  take  up  his  residence  in  Raleigh,  N.  C,  in  which  State 
there  were  but  a  handful  of  Catholics.  In  New  Berne, 
N.  C,  lived  a  Catholic  family,  the  Gastons,  in  whose  house, 
about  I  784,  the  Rev.  Patrick  Cleary,  of  Funchal,  Madeira, 
celebrated  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass  before  a  few 
Catholics.  He  had  come  to  claim  an  inheritance,  and  was 
detained  by  the  law's  delays  until  1790,  when  he  died. 

Georgia  in  colonial  days  was  closed  to  the  church  b)' 
stringent  ])enal  laws.  A  certain  Abbe  Le  Moine  labored 
there — how  long  is  not  known — and  died  in  1 796.  In 
1803  arrived  in  Savannah  the  Rev.  Anthony  Carles,  who 


llA.SJ/JXinoX  AXD    CAKKOLL.  289 

attended  to  the  few  Catholics  there  and  in  Augusta.  Such 
was  the  condition  of  the  xast  diocese  of  Baltimore  in  the 
first  years  of  the  centur\-. 

On  the  death  of  Washington  (1799)  Bishop  Carroll 
ordered  the  23d  of  l-'cbruary  to  be  celebrated  as  a  day  of 
mourning.  Of  late  years  some  Catholic  writers  ha\-e 
claimed  that  Washington  died  a  Catholic.  At  most  we 
may  perhaps  say  that  he  was  thinking  of  such  a  step  be- 
fore death  overcame  him  ;  for  Carrol! — our  tiuthority  for 
the  statement  is  Gilmary  Shea — compares  him  to  "  the 
young  Emperor  Valentinian,  who  w-as  deprived  of  life  be- 
fore his  initiation  into  the  church."  Carroll's  discourse  on 
the  occasion  of  Washington's  death  was  considered  at  the 
time  a  masterpiece,  and  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  finest 
eulogies  ever  pronounced  on  "  the  father  of  his  country." 
These  two  great  men  were  bound  by  ties  of  mutual  re- 
spect, and  none  could  speak  more  understandingly  and 
feelingly  of  the  great  general  and  President  than  the  great 
priest  and  bishop;  both  are  types  of  our  earliest  and  our 
best  Americanism.  Mr.  Custis,  the  adopted  son  and  heir 
of  W^ashington,  described  the  relations  of  Carroll  and 
Washington  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  White  which  is  to  be  found 
in  the  appendix  to  Darras's  "  History  of  the  Church  "  : 
"  From  his  exalted  worth  as  a  minister  of  God,  his  stain- 
less character  as  a  man,  and,  above  all,  his  distinguished 
services  as  a  patriot  of  the  Revolution,  Dr.  Carroll  stood 
high — very  high — in  the  esteem  and  afifections  of  the 
pate)'  patri(E." 

The  city  of  Washington  was  called  into  existence  by 
acts  of  Congress  (1790  and  1791)  setting  apart  as  the 
District  of  Columbia  a  tract  of  ten  square  miles,  taken 
partly  from  Maryland  and  partly  from  Virginia.  In  this 
space  were  the  village  and  college  of  Georgetown.  The 
Catholics  of  the  village  had  hitherto  depended  mainly  on 


290  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

the  chapel  of  the  Young  family  as  a  place  of  worship ;  it 
was  only  in  1792  that  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity  was 
erected.  Within  the  limits  of  the  new  city — planned  by  a 
Catholic,  L'Enfant,  and  governed  by  three  commissioners, 
of  whom  the  brother  of  Bishop  Carroll,  Daniel,  was  one — 
the  Catholics  secured  a  site  (1794)  on  which  was  built  a 
church  dedicated  to  St.  Patrick.  The  first  pastor  was  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Cafifrey,  who  ruled  it  until  1805.  The  second 
was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Mathews,  who  ruled  it  for  fifty  years.  At 
a  point  near  the  present  navy-yard  was  St.  Mary's  Church 
(known  as  Barry's  Chapel,  because  it  had  been  erected  by 
a  Mr.  Barry),  the  corner-stone  of  which  is  now  shown  in 
the  walls  of  the  present  St.  Dominic's  Church.  Another 
Daniel  Carroll,  of  Dudington,  cousin  of  the  bishop,  propri- 
etor as  well  as  the  bishop's  brother  of  part  of  the  site  of 
the  capital,  donated  for  a  church  a  piece  of  land,  now  in 
St.  Peter's  parish,  long  known  as  the  cathedral  lot. 

The  coadjutor.  Bishop  Neale,  was  yielding  to  the  influ- 
ence of  years  faster  than  Carroll,  and  was  less  able  than 
he  to  undergo  the  hardships  of  long  journeys.  The  neces- 
sity of  erecting  new  sees  was  urgent,  and  was  treated 
by  Carroll  in  his  correspondence  with  Rome  as  early  as 
1802.  A  poHtical  event  made  this  move  still  more  nec- 
essary. It  was  the  acquisition  by  the  United  States  of 
Louisiana  (1803),  and  the  addition  of  this  new  province 
by  the  Propaganda  (September,  1805)  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  Carroll,  inasmuch  as  he  was  made  the  Administrator 
Apostolic  of  the  diocese  of  New  Orleans,  with  power  to 
name  for  it  a  vicar  general.  Tliis  diocese  at  the  time 
of  cession  had  twenty-one  parishes.  Of  the  twenty-six 
priests  who  were  laboring  there  when  the  Spanish  domi- 
nation ceased,  only  a  few  agreed  to  continue  in  service 
under  the  American  flag.  The  first  vicar  general  named 
by  Bishop   Carroll  was  Rev.  John  Olivier,  who  had  been 


ERECTION  OF  NEW  SEES.  29 1 

at  work  in  the  missions  of  Illinois.  lie  found  matters  in 
New  Orleans  in  a  sad  state,  and  was  thwarted  in  his  ad- 
ministration by  one  of  the  Capuchins,  the  Rev.  Antonio 
Sedella,  an  unworthy  ecclesiastic,  who  had  been  in  the 
past  and  continued  to  be  for  many  years  the  curse  of  the 
church  in  Louisiana,  where  his  influence  over  the  trustees 
of  the  cathedral  enabled  him  to  resist  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities.  Age  and  sickness  rendered  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Olivier  unfit  to  cope  with  the  evils,  and  in  18 10  the  bishop 
sent  to  New  Orleans  as  his  vicar  general  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Sibourd  ;  but  he,  too,  found  that  Sedella  and  his  unworthy 
assistants  would  not  be  brought  under  discipline  nor  be 
changed  from  their  scandalous  lives. 

Again  did  Carroll  urge  the  erection  of  new  sees,  and 
sent  to  Rome  the  names  of  the  clergymen  he  deemed  fittest 
for  the  honor  and  burden  of  the  episcopate.  The  recom- 
mendations were  accepted  by  Rome,  with  one  exception. 
Carroll  had  advised  that  the  contemplated  see  of  New 
York  should  for  the  time  being  remain  unfilled  and  be 
placed  under  the  care  of  the  Bishop  of  Boston.  Another 
influence  than  that  of  the  American  church  was  at  work 
in  Rome,  and  succeeded  in  filling  at  once  the  see  of  New 
York  with  an  Irish  Dominican,  Father  Richard  Luke  Con- 
canen,  who  had  resided  many  years  in  the  Eternal  City' 
as  the  agent  of  the  Irish  bishops.  We  shall  have  more  to 
say  presently  of  this  foreign  influence.  The  bulls  dividing 
the  see  of  Baltimore  and  erecting  the  sees  of  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Bardstown  are  dated  April  8, 
1808,  and  signed  by  Pope  Pius  VII.  The  diocese  of  New 
York  was  to  comprise  that  State  and  the  eastern  part  of 
the  State  of  New  Jersey  ;  the  diocese  of  Philadelphia  was 
to  comprise  the  States  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  and 
the  western  and  southern  parts  of  New  Jersey  ;  the  diocese 
of  Boston  was  to  comprise  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire, 


292  THE   ROMAN   CATHOLICS.  [Chai\  xix. 

Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  Vermont;  the  diocese  of 
Bardstown  was  to  comprise  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  the 
Northwest  Territory.  The  new  sees  were  made  suflFragan 
to  the  metropoHtan  church  of  Baltimore,  which  was  left  with 
Maryland,  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia  as  its  dio- 
cesan territory.  The  see  of  Baltimore  had  also,  for  the 
time  being,  the  administration  of  the  diocese  of  New 
Orleans,  which  comprised  Alabama  and  Florida,  the  Isle 
of  Orleans,  and  the  whole  country  west  of  the  Mississippi 
as  far  north  as  the  northern  boundary  of  the  United  States, 
as  far  west  as  the  Spanish  possessions  in  New  Mexico  and 
Upper  California,  a  boundary-line  so  vague  at  the  time 
that  no  on£  could  well  trace  it.  Such,  then,  was  the 
ecclesiastical  division  of  the  United  States  nineteen  years 
after  the  erection  of  the  see  of  Baltimore. 

The  Bishop  elect  of  New  York,  Concanen,  who  was 
consecrated  in  Rome  April  24,  1808,  was  intrusted  with 
the  bulls  for  the  other  bishops  elect ;  but  he  was  prevented 
from  finding  passage  for  America  owing  to  the  troubled 
politics  of  the  time,  and  died  in  Naples,  vainly  waiting  for 
a  ship  and  a  passport,  June  20,  18 10.  How  much  more 
time  might  have  elapsed  before  Bishop  Carroll  could  have 
proceeded  to  the  consecration  of  the  bishops  elect  it  would 
be  hard  to  say,  had  not  Bishop  Concanen  fortunately  for- 
warded, before  dying,  to  Rev.  Mr.  Emery,  superior  of 
St.  Sulpice,  Paris,  authentic  copies  of  the  bulls.  It  was 
on  these  copies  of  the  original  documents,  brought  to  the 
United  States  by  Mr.  Flaget,  that  Bishop  Carroll  acted. 
The  consecrations  took  place  in  the  following  order:  that 
of  Dr.  Egan,  Bishop  elect  of  Philadelphia,  on  October  28, 
1 8 10;  that  of  Dr.  Cheverus,  Bishop  elect  of  Boston,  on 
November  1st;  that  of  Dr.  Flaget,  Bishop  elect  of  Bards- 
town, on  November  4th.  Between  the  issuing  of  the  bulls 
and  the  consecrations  more  than  two  years  had  passed. 


DU  BOURG   IN  KKW  ORLEAXS.  293 

Before  separating,  the  suffragans,  with  their  metropolitan, 
held  a  meeting  in  which  were  discussed  the  church  inter- 
ests of  the  country,  and  a  pastoral  letter  was  drawn  up 
embodying  their  views.  The  statistics  at  this  time,  as  far 
as  they  can  be  made  out,  show  seventy  priests  and  eighty 
churches  in  the  United  States,  exclusive  of  the  diocese  of 
New  Orleans ;  we  have  no  means  of  stating  precisely  the 
Catholic  population  ;  a  fair  guess  would  be  seventy  thou- 
sand. It  had  been  agreed  among  the  bishops  in  their  first 
meeting  that  a  Provincial  Council  should  be  held  not  later 
than  November,  1 8 1 2  ;  a  few  years  of  administration  in  their 
respective  dioceses  would  have  shown  them  by  that  time 
the  needs  of  the  church.  But  the  difficulty,  not  to  say 
impossibility,  of  holding  communication  with  the  Pope, 
then  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  Napoleon,  made  the  pro- 
ject impossible  of  realization.  And,  at  any  rate,  the  War 
of  18 12  between  England  and  the  United  States  broke 
out,  bringing  disaster  to  the  country  on  the  Chesapeake, 
on  the  northern  frontier  of  Michigan,  and  on  the  Missis- 
sippi at  New  Orleans. 

By  this  time  the  country  that  had  formerly  made  up  the 
diocese  of  Louisiana  passed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  Bishop 
Carroll.  He  succeeded  in  inducing  the  holy  see  to  name 
as  Administrator  Apostolic  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas 
the  Rev.  William  du  Bourg.  He  was  a  learned  and  brill- 
iant man,  but  had  not  the  courage  and  perseverance 
necessary  to  oppose  and  overcome  the  rebellious  Capu- 
chins. The  cathedral  remained  closed  to  him ;  he  even 
took  to  flight  before  the  commotion  raised  among  the  fol- 
lowers of  Sedella  by  his  suspension  of  that  unworthy  priest. 
However,  he  is  to  be  commended  and  remembered  for  his 
patriotic  action  in  the  war.  While  the  British  forces 
attacked  the  city  he  ordered  prayers  to  be  said  in  the 
churches;  and  after  General  Jackson's  glorious  victory  he 


294  ^-^^  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

threw  open  his  pro-cathedral  for  a  solemn  service  of 
thanksgiving,  at  which  the  "  hero  of  the  two  Floridas  " 
was  present. 

Of  all  the  clergy  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Carroll,  the 
most  useful  were  the  Sulpitians,  who  not  only  trained  in 
St.  Mary's  Seminary,  Baltimore,  the  rising  generations  of 
native  priests,  but  also  took  charge  of  neglected  missions 
in  the  East  and  the  distant  West,  when  no  one  else  of  the 
diocesan  and  regular  clergymen  could  be  found  free  or 
willing  to  undertake  the  arduous  task.  It  looked  at  one 
time  (1803)  as  if  the  American  church  was  to  lose  those 
heroic  auxiliaries.  Better  times  for  religion  in  France  and 
dissatisfaction  among  some  of  the  Sulpitians  in  the  United 
States  induced  their  superior  general,  Mr.  Emery,  to  order 
the  return  of  all  his  American  subjects.  To  Bishop  Car- 
roll, who  spoke  of  them  always  as  the  best  priests  he  ever 
knew,  the  prospect  was  disheartening.  Already  some  had 
obeyed  the  order  and  others  were  preparing  to  do  so, 
when  Mr.  Emery,  who  hesitated  on  the  representations 
and  protest  of  Carroll,  laid  the  matter  before  Pius  VII., 
then  in  Paris  for  the  coronation  of  Napoleon.  "  My  son," 
answered  the  Pope,  **  let  this  seminary  subsist.  To  recall 
the  directors  in  order  to  employ  them  in  France  would  be 
stripping  St.  Paul  to  clothe  St.  Peter."  Thus  was  Amer- 
ica providentially  spared  the  disaster  of  being  deprived  of 
an  institution  and  of  men  that  have  rendered  to  the  church 
of  this  republic  services  the  value  of  which  Heaven  alone 
can  appreciate  and  reward. 

Four  years  after  the  installation  of  Bishop  Egan  in  the 
see  of  Philadelphia  he  died,  sickened  and  discouraged  by 
the  opposition  he  found  in  the  trustees  and  the  priests  of 
his  cathedral.  New  York  and  Philadelphia  were  now 
vacant.  As  it  was  known  that  Bishop  Concanen  before 
his  death  had  petitioned  the  holy  see  to  name  as  his  coad- 


EUROPEAN  INTRIGUES.  295 

JLitor  the  Rev.  Ambrose  Marechal,  Archbishop  Carroll  and 
his  suffragans,  who  approved  that  choice,  gave  themselves 
no  further  concern  about  filling  the  vacancy  made  by 
Concanen's  death,  considering  Marechal's  nomination  as 
good  as  settled.  To  their  utter  astonishment  they  learned 
that  certain  European  influences  were  at  work  in  Rome, 
viz.,  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin  and  other  Irish  bishops, 
urging  for  the  see  of  New  York  the  priest  who  had  been 
the  great  opponent  of  Bishop  Egan  in  Philadelphia,  Father 
Harold  ;  and,  though  they  succeeded  in  having  that  gentle- 
man thrown  out  of  consideration,  it  was  with  no  small 
wonder  and  dissatisfaction  that  they  saw  their  own  nom- 
inee, the  Rev.  John  B.  David,  set  aside,  and  the  nominee 
of  the  Irish  influence.  Dr.  Connolly,  a  subject  of  the  coun- 
try with  which  the  United  States  was  actually  at  war,  ap- 
pointed and  consecrated  Bishop  of  New  York  in  November, 
1814. 

It  is  proper  that  we  should  say  a  word  in  regard  to  the 
Irish  Cahenslyism — a  word  introduced  by  the  Standard 
Dictionary — that  tainted  our  infancy  and  threatened  our 
future.  No  sooner  had  the  United  States  become  an  in- 
dependent nation  than  lay  and  clerical  authorities  in  vari- 
ous foreign  countries  considered  it  fair  spoils  and  an  open 
field  for  their  intrigues.  We  have  already  seen  how  the 
French  minister  to  the  United  States,  Barbe  de  Marbois, 
concerted  with  the  papal  nuncio,  and  inveigled  good  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  into  the  scheme  to  set  over  the  Catholics 
of  the  United  States  a  French  prefect,  or  vicar  apostolic, 
or  bishop.  Another  French  attempt  was  made  in  1775. 
A  certain  adventurer,  Pierre  Penet,  trafficking  among  the 
Oneida  Indians  of  New  York,  induced  them  to  apply  to 
the  French  minister  for  a  French  priest,  a  Rev.  Mr.  Perrot, 
who  arrived  there  in  1789  and  received  from  the  tribe  a 
glebe   of  three   hundred  acres.     A  few  years  afterward 


296  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xix. 

(1790)  another  French  adventurer,  professing  to  be  the 
agent  of  the  Oneida  Indians,  addressed  a  petition  to  Pius 
VI.,  through  the  nuncio  in  Paris,  asking  the  estabhshment 
of  a  bishop  at  Oneida,  "  a  great  territory  between  the 
United  States  and  Canada;"  and  presented  to  his  HoH- 
ness  as  nominee  "  the  Rev^  John  Louis  Victor  le  Tonneher 
de  Coulanges,  whom  the  Oneida  nation  and  the  chiefs  of 
the  Six  Nations  have  chosen  as  Bishop  of  Oneida  and 
Primate  of  the  Six  Nations."  The  petition  is  in  the 
archives  of  the  Propaganda.  The  scheme  never  came  to 
reaUzation. 

In  1 791  an  Irish  priest,  the  Rev.  Edmund  Burke,  a 
professor  in  the  seminary  of  Quebec,  called  the  attention 
of  the  Propaganda,  through  Archbishop  Troy,  of  Dublin, 
to  the  sad  condition  of  the  missions  in  the  Northwest,  and 
proceeded  thither  to  carry  out  certain  reforms  of  his  own. 
He  thus  expresses  his  views :  "  I  am  the  Administrator  of 
Upper  Canada,  with  every  episcopal  power  except  what 
requires  episcopal  order;  yet  I  find  a  very  great  want  of 
power,  for  here  the  limits  of  jurisdiction  are  very  uncertain 
and  unsettled,  the  country  being  in  dispute  between  the 
Bishops  of  Quebec  and  Baltimore.  I  know  no  jurisdiction 
certain  but  that  of  his  Holiness.  Besides,  confirmation 
is  a  sacrament  totall)'  unknown  here."  He  then  urged 
Archbishop  Troy  to  get  the  Propaganda  to  establish  a 
mission  independent  of  both  bishops;  but  this  was  never 
done. 

Yet  another  project  is  recorded — French  this  time. 
The  Scioto  Company,  an  association  of  real-estate  specu- 
lators, founded  a  colony  on  the  Scioto  River,  and  actually 
got  the  Propaganda  to  create  a  prefecture  apostolic  before 
even  the  colony  had  come  into  existence.  When,  a  few 
years  afterward  (1790),  a  few  hundred  French  immigrants 
reached  the  Ohio  and  founded  Gallipolis,  Dom  Didier,  a 


DEATH   OF   CARROLL.  297 

Benedictine  monk  who  accompanied  them,  was  appointed 
superior  with  ample  powers,  but  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Bisliop  of  Baltimore,  "  if  the  contemplated  colony 
would  be  located  in  that  diocese."  Gallipolis  dwindled 
away,  and  Dom  Didier,  an  estimable  man,  ended  his  days 
in  St.  Louis.     So  ended  the  prefecture  apostolic  of  Scioto. 

In  1808  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin  and  other  Irish 
bishops  brought  about,  as  we  have  seen,  independently  of 
Bishop  Carroll  and  the  American  clergy,  the  nomination 
of  Father  Richard  Luke  Concanen  to  the  see  of  New 
York,  and  in  18 14  the  nomination  of  Father  Connolly  as 
his  successor.  In  the  same  manner  and  through  the  same 
agencies  Pliiladelphia  receix'ed  a  successor  to  Bishop  Egan 
(18 1 9)  in  the  Rev.  Henry  Conwell,  Vicar  General  of 
Armagh  ;  Richmond  was  given  for  bishop  (1820)  the  Rev. 
P.  Kelly,  president  of  St.  John's  Seminary,  Kilkenu}- ;  and 
in  the  same  year  Charleston  received  as  bishop  the  Re\-. 
John  P^ngland,  a  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Cork,  Ireland. 
It  looked  in  the  first  quarter  of  this  century  as  if  home 
rule  were  to  be  taken  from  the  church  of  the  United  States 
through  foreign  interference. 

Now  the  one  thing  that  Carroll  fought  for  during 
his  whole  life  was  the  independence  of  the  American 
church  from  any  control  and  dictation  but  that  of  the  holy 
see.  It  was  for  him  a  sorrow,  embittering  his  last  years, 
that  other  influences  had  a  predominating  voice  in  our 
destiny,  and  that  Rome  seemed  to  withdraw  confidence 
from  him  and  his  fellow-bishops,  and  prefer  to  their  coun- 
sels those  of  aliens  who  could  not  have  a  correct  knowledge 
of  the  needs  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  summer  of  181 5  he  showed  signs  of  breaking 
up  ;  the  end  came  to  him  December  3d  of  that  year.  The 
progress  of  his  episcopate  had  been  wonderful,  a  fit  pledge 
of  the  still   more   marvelous   development   about   to  take 


298  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.,  [Chap.  xijc. 

place  within  a  few  years.  An  archbishopric,  four  suffragan 
sees,  and  one  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  not  under 
the  metropoHtan  jurisdiction  of  Baltimore;  a  seminary,  a 
novitiate  and  scholasticate,  colleges,  convents,  institutions 
of  charity ;  the  beginnings  of  a  Catholic  press  and  litera- 
ture; a  clergy  increased  to  at  least  one  hundred  priests; 
an  extension  of  the  church  southward  and  westward  by 
means  of  an  immigration  small,  as  yet,  compared  to  the 
coming  flood  ;  a  wider  liberty  for  the  church  in  the  consti- 
tutions and  the  rulings  of  the  courts  in  the  various  States — 
such  is  the  noble  record  that  is  to  be  placed  to  his  credit. 
He  came  on  the  scene  when  the  sky  was  darkest  for  the 
church;  he  departed  with  the  full  light  and  warmth  of 
success  shining  on  it.  A  great  American  and  a  great 
churchman,  he  molded  the  diverse  elements  of  the  Amer- 
ican Catholicity  of  his  day  into  a  unity  which  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  time  and  the  seemingly  adverse  influence  of  a 
vast  foreign  immigration  have  not  destroyed.  The  Amer- 
icanism of  Carroll  is  a  precious  heirloom  and  a  lasting 
inspiration  to  the  churchmen  of  to-day. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  PROVINCE  OF  BALTIMORE  (l  8  I  5-29). 

After  the  death  of  Archbishop  Carroll  the  administra- 
tion of  the  diocese  of  Baltimore  fell  to  his  coadjutor, 
Bishop  Neale,  who  for  fifteen  years  had  lived  in  George- 
town and  continued  to  live  there,  visiting  the  episcopal 
city  only  when  business  of  the  diocese  required  his  pres- 
ence. Troubles  with  the  trustees  of  Norfolk  and  Charles- 
ton embittered  the  two  years  during  which  he  survived 
his  predecessor.  He  had,  however,  the  consolation  of 
receiying  from  Rome  the  canonical  erection  of  the  Visitation 
Convent  of  Georgetown,  and  also  of  restoring  to  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  of  which  he  had  been  a  member,  the  old  missions 
that  the  fathers  had  founded  and  attended  in  colonial 
days. 

Ambrose  Marechal,  elected  to  succeed  Archbishop 
Neale,  was  a  Sulpitian  who  came  to  the  United  States 
in  1792,  had  been  professor  of  philosophy  in  Georgetown, 
of  theology  in  St.  Mary's  Seminary,  Baltimore,  and  had 
refused  the  miter  of  Philadelphia.  One  of  his  first  efforts 
was  to  settle  the  disordered  condition  of  the  churches  of 
Norfolk  and  Charleston.  But  the  obstinacy  of  the  trustees 
and  the  rebellious  priests,  upheld  b}-  a  laity  ignorant  of 
ecclesiastical  law,  paralyzed  his  efforts ;  and,  worse  still, 
false  representations  made  to  Rome  brought  forth  orders 
from  the  Propaganda  that  gave  for  a  while  approval  and 
courage  to  the   rebels,   pain   and   discouragement  to  the 

299 


300  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOL/CS.  [Chap.  xx. 

archbishop  and  the  defenders  of  correct  discipline.  Bishop 
Connolly,  of  New  York,  who  was  a  stranger  in  the  coun- 
try, and  could  not  know  at  such  a  distance  how  matters 
really  went  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  was  unwittingly 
led  to  take  sides  with  the  men,  cleric  and  lay,  who 
ignored  the  rightful  authority  of  the  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more, and  was  mainly  instrumental,  through  the  hierarchy 
of  Ireland  and  their  agents  in  Rome,  in  fostering  the  op- 
]30sition  and  foisting  on  the  church  of  America  important 
decisions  from  Rome,  some  of  which  were  proved  by  the 
events  to  be  unwise  and  unfavorable  to  progress. 

Archbishop  Marechal  petitioned  the  holy  see  to  erect  in 
the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  a  diocese,  with  the  bishop's  see 
at  Charleston.  He  did  not  propose  any  candidates,  as  no 
fixed  mode  of  episcopal  elections  had  been  settled  as  yet 
for  the  United  States,  and  as  he  knew  that  certain  prej- 
udices against  the  former  archbishops  of  Baltimore  existed 
in  Rome.  Now  it  is  a  strange  fact  to  state  at  the  present 
(lay  that  the  proposed  plan  of  Marechal  was  altered,  two 
dioceses  being  erected  while  he  asked  for  one,  a  large  and 
wealthy  State  being  cut  off  from  his  own  jurisdiction  while 
he  requested  and  hinted  no  such  curtailing;  a  strange  fact 
that  as  bishops  to  the  new  sees  thus  created — Richmond 
and  Charleston — men  were  appointed  foreign  to  the  coun- 
try, unknown  to  the  American  clergy — the  Rev.  Patrick 
Kelly  and  the  Rev.  John  England  ;  and  strangest  fact  of 
all  that  this  originated  with  the  rebel  element  in  Norfolk 
and  Charleston,  men  without  religion,  who  had  thought  at 
one  time  of  recurring  to  the  Jansenistic  bishops  of  Holland 
to  effect  their  independence  of  Baltimore.  This  element 
misled  the  Irish  hierarchy,  which  in  turn,  through  its 
Roman  agent,  misled  the  Propaganda  into  taking  such 
important  measures  without,  I  will  not  say  the  consent, 
but  even  the  advice  of  the  American  hierarchy. 


RICHMOND  MADE  A    BISHOPRIC.  30  I 

The  singular  feature  about  this  move  was  that  the  new 
sees  spht  the  diocese  of  Baltimore  in  two  parts,  viz., 
Maryland  and  the  District  of  Columbia  in  the  northeast, 
Alabama  and  Mississippi  in  the  southwest.  Evidently  the 
Irish  bishops  and  the  Propaganda  were  not  well  up  in  the 
geography  of  the  United  States.  Marechal  protested,  of 
course,  but  it  was  too  late;  the  thing  was  done.  Particu- 
larly unfortunate  was  the  appointment  of  the  Rew  Patrick- 
Kelly  to  the  see  of  Richmond.  He  took  possession  of  his 
diocese  in  January,  1821,  fixing  his  residence  in  Norfolk, 
the  hotbed  of  discontent  and  rebellion.  One  of  the  reasons 
given  in  Rome  for  the  erection  of  Virginia  into  a  separate 
diocese  was  its  immense  distance  from  Baltimore.  It  took 
Bishop  Kelly  just  twenty-four  hours  to  sail  down  the 
Chesapeake  from  that  city  to  the  place  of  his  residence. 
The  very  men  who  had  clamored  for  independence  from 
the  metropolitan  see  turned  against  him,  and  he  was  com- 
pelled, in  order  to  maintain  himself,  to  open  and  run  a 
school.  Finally  he  left  Virginia  in  July,  1822,  for  Water- 
ford,  Ireland,  to  which  diocese  the  Pope  in  mercy  trans- 
ferred him.  Of  the  new  Bishop  of  Charleston  we  have  a 
different  story  to  tell.  His  coming  turned  out  a  blessing; 
he  became  the  great  American  prelate  of  his  generation, 
and  his  name  is  forever  enshrined  in  the  history  of  the 
church  of  the  United  States. 

Though  compelled  by  want  of  means  to  complete  the 
cathedral  begun  by  Archbishop  Carroll  with  less  grandeur 
than  had  been  originally  intended,  yet  Marechal  had  the 
consolation  of  dedicating  that  building — a  noble  one  for 
the  time,  a  noble  one  still  to-day — in  May,  1821.  This 
done,  he  went  to  Rome  to  fulfil  the  obligation  that  rests 
on  every  bishop  to  visit  from  time  to  time  the  Holy  Father 
and  the  threshold  of  the  apostles.  He  laid  before  the  holy 
see  a  statement  of  the  condition  of  his  diocese  and  prov- 


302  I'lIE   ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

ince.  He  estimated  the  Catholic  population  of  his  province 
and  of  Louisiana  at  two  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand. 
The  number  of  Catholics  in  Baltimore,  the  largest  center 
at  the  time,  was  ten  thousand.  For  the  education  and 
supply  of  future  priests  he  had  St.  Mary's  Seminary,  Bal- 
timore, in  charge  of  the  Sulpitians,  the  seminary  at  Em- 
mitsburg,  and  the  Scholasticate  and  Novitiate  of  the  So- 
ciety of  Jesus  at  Georgetown.  For  the  higher  education 
of  Catholic  boys  there  were  the  College  of  St.  Mary,  Bal- 
timore, in  care  of  the  Sulpitians,  and  Georgetown  College, 
in  careof  the  Jesuits.  For  the  higher  education  of  girls  there 
were  the  Visitation  Academy,  Georgetown,  in  care  of  the 
Visitation  nuns,  and  St.  Joseph's  Academy,  Emmitsburg,  in 
care  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  founded  by  Mother  Seton. 

While  in  Rome  the  archbishop  brought  to  the  attention 
of  the  holy  see  some  questions  concerning  the  property 
that  had  been  formerly  held  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania 
by  the  Jesuits  in  colonial  times.  The  bull  Doniiiuis  ac 
Rcdemptor,  by  Vvhich  the  Society  of  Jesus  was  suppressed 
under  Clement  XIV.  (July,  1773),  forbade  the  members 
of  the  suppressed  society  from  purchasing  or  selling  any 
house,  goods,  or  estates.  The  encyclical  Dc  abolenda 
Societate  Jesti,  issued  about  a  month  afterw^ard  (August 
^8,  1773),  required  each  bishop  to  take  and  retain  posses- 
sion of  the  houses  and  colleges  of  the  extinct  order  in  his 
diocese,  and  of  their  goods,  rights,  and  appurtenances  of 
what  kind  soever.  At  that  time  the  church  in  the  United 
States  was  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of 
London,  Bishop  Challoner.  He  made  known  the  above- 
named  documents  to  the  Jesuits  of  Maryland  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  received  their  written  adhesion  thereto.  As  to 
tlieir  properties  he  took  no  steps,  for  the  Jesuits,  as  a 
corporation,  could  not  at  that  time  hold  property  in  Eng- 
land  or  its  dominions,   and   therefore   their  lands   in    the 


marLchal  and  the  jesuits.  303 

American  colonies  were  held  by  individuals.  Perhaps 
Challoner  knew  not  how  to  enforce  the  Roman  provisiond 
under  the  circumstances,  and,  at  any  rate,  the  war  soon 
came  to  break  off  his  intercourse  with  the  American  church. 
In  December,  1792,  the  individual  ex-Jesuits  who  held  in 
their  names  the  properties  in  question  transferred  them, 
as  trust  property,  to  a  corporation — formed  under  an  act 
of  the  legislature  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  and  made  up 
of  the  former  members  of  the  extinct  society — "  Cor- 
poration of  the  Roman  Catholic  Clergymen."  When 
Carroll  was  made  Bishop  of  Baltimore  the  revenues  of  one 
of  the  plantations  were  assigned  to  him  and  continued  to 
his  successor,  Neale,  both  having  been  Jesuits.  But  when 
Marechal  became  archbishop  the  payment  of  the  revenues 
of  the  plantation  was  discontinued  for  the  reason  that  he" 
had  not  been  a  member  of  the  Jesuit  corporation. 

Now  Marechal's  contention  in  Rome  was  that  the  bull 
erecting  the  see  of  Baltimore  vested  in  the  bishop  of  that 
see  all  the  properties  formerly  held  by  the  Jesuits  in  Mary- 
land, and,  moreover,  that  certain  of  the  estates  had  been 
originally  given  not  to  the  society,  but  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  matter  was  referred  to  a  commission  of 
cardinals,  and  on  their  recommendation  Pius  VII.  issued  a 
brief  (July,  1822)  requiring  the  general  of  the  society  and 
the  Maryland  fathers  to  transfer  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Baltimore  one  of  the  estates,  Whitemarsh,  or  its  equiva- 
lent, the  rent  of  the  other  properties  to  remain  in  their 
hands.  The  Maryland  Jesuits  delayed  compliance  with 
the  order  and  protested  ;  the  Propaganda  again  insisted  on 
the  exact  execution  of  the  brief.  Meanwhile  the  affair 
had  been  laid  by  parties  favorable  to  the  Maryland  fathers, 
if  not  by  themselves,  before  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  Monroe ;  and  so  strong  were  the  expostulations 
from  Washington   that   the   Pope  accepted  a  compromise 


304  ^'^^"   ^OMAN  CAT  110 Lies.  [Chap.  xx. 

proposition  made  by  the  general  of  the  society  to  pay 
Arclibishop  Marechal  annually  the  sum  of  eight  hundred 
Roman  crowns.  At  the  bottom  of  the  decisions  by  the 
holy  see  lay  the  principle  that  the  property  of  the  society 
at  the  time  of  its  suppression  vested  in  the  Pope,  who 
could  dispose  of  it  to  the  best  interests  of  religion. 

The  interference  of  the  hierarchy  of  another  country  in 
American  church  affairs,  and  the  urgency  of  some  fixed 
mode  of  appointment  to  American  bishoprics,  was  another 
important  matter  which  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  laid 
before  the  holy  see.  "  We  freely  confess,"  be  writes  in  a 
document  to  the  Pope,  "  that  we  have  no  right  to  present 
bishops  for  the  province  of  Baltimore  ;  .  .  .  }-et  it  is  cer- 
tain that  they  must  be  nominated  by  some  one.  But  who, 
seeing  the  distance  of  North  America  from  Rome,  is  to 
present  capable  and  worthy  subjects?  The  Irish  bishops 
cannot  do  so  with  advantage  ;  it  is  utterly  impossible  for 
them  to  nominate  men  who  suit  our  States."  In  conse- 
quence of  this  plea  the  Pope  granted  to  the  Ameircan 
hierarchy  the  right  of  recommending  suitable  persons  for 
vacancies  in  the  episcopate.  This  was  a  first  step  in  home 
rule  and  a  blow  to  Irish  intermeddling  in  the  government 
of  the  church  in  the  United  States.  In  immediate  exercise 
of  this  home  rule,  the  archbishop  renounced  his  jurisdic- 
tion over  Alabama  and  Mississippi ;  Alabama,  with  the 
addition  of  Florida,  was  then  erected  into  a  bishopric,  the 
see  being  Mobile,  and  Mississippi  was  erected  into  a  vica- 
riate apostolic,  and  was  put  for  the  nonce  under  the  care 
of  Bishop  Du  Bourg,  of  New  Orleans.  By  these  acts  the 
diocese  of  Baltimore  was  limited  to  the  territory  over 
which  it  has  had  jurisdiction  even  to  our  day,  Maryland 
and  the  District  of  Columbia.  In  addition  to  the  diocese 
proper  of  Baltimore,  Marechal  was  the  Administrator  pj'O 
ti'ui,  of  the  diocese  of  Richmond,  left  vacant  by  the  trans- 


DEATH  OF  MARi,CHAL.  305 

fer  of  its  first  incumbent,  Bishop  Kelly,  to  the  see  of 
Waterford,  Ireland. 

Two  other  dioceses  in  the  United  States  became  vacant : 
that  of  Boston  by  the  translation  of  Bishop  Cheverus  to  the 
see  of  Montauban  in  France,  October,  1823;  and  that  of 
New  York  by  the  death  of  Bishop    Connolly,    February, 

1825.  Acting  on  the  privilege  granted  by  the  holy  see, 
the  bishops  of  the  province  of  Baltimore  recommended 
the  Rev.  Benedict  J.  Fenwick,  S.J.,  for  the  vacant  see  of 
Boston,  and  the  Rev.  John  Dubois,  president  of  Mount 
St.  Mary's  College,  Emmitsburg,  for  the  vacant  see  of 
New  York.  The  former  was  consecrated  in  the  cathedral 
of  Baltimore,  November  i,  1825,  and  the  latter,  October, 

1826.  As  the  field  of  labor  of  Archbishop  Marechal 
was  too  extensive,  and  his  health  too  impaired  by 
age  and  the  hardships  of  his  former  missionary  life, 
to  allow  him  to  fulfil  all  the  duties  of  his  office,  he 
solicited  and  obtained  the  appointment  of  a  coadjutor 
with  the  right  of  succession.  The  bulls,  however,  did 
not  arrive  before  the  venerable  metropolitan's  death 
(January  29,  1828).  He  was  a  worthy  successor  to 
the  great  American  prelate,  John  Carroll ;  he  achieved 
the  one  great  object  for  which  Carroll  labored  through- 
out his  administration — freedom  of  the  American  church 
from  any  influence  and  control  but  that  of  the  holy 
see.  No  greater  proof  of  thorough  Americanism  could  be 
demanded  even  from  a  child  of  the  soil,  and  the  achieve- 
ment was  all  the  more  remarkable  that  Mart5chal  was  not 
by  birth,  though  he  surely  was  at  heart,  an  American. 

The  Most  Rev.  James  Whitfield,  the  coadjutor  elect, 
was  consecrated  in  the  cathedral  of  Baltimore,  May  25, 
1828.  For  eleven  years  he  had  been  laboring  as  a  priest 
in  that  parish,  having  come  from  England,  his  native 
country,  in  September,  181 7.      It  is  the  special  glory  of 


3o6  rilE   ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

his  episcopate  that  he  convoked  and  presided  over  the 
First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore,  which  in  a  sense 
might  be  called  plenary,  since  all  the  bishops  of  the  coun- 
try were  present  as  members  of  that  assembly ;  but  which 
in  reality  was  onh^  provincial,  since  there  was  in  the  coun- 
try but  one  province.  The  project  was  one  that  Carroll 
and  Marechal  had  cherished.  The  necessary  authorization 
came  from  Pius  VIII.  in  the  first  year  of  Whitfield's  ad- 
ministration, and  the  assembly  was  convoked  by  him  for 
the  first  day  of  October,  1829.  His  diocese  at  that  time 
contained  about  seventy-five  thousand  Catholics  and  fifty- 
two  priests ;  the  diocese  of  Richmond,  of  which  he,  like 
his  predecessor,  was  adininistrator,  counted  scarcely  one 
thousand  Catholics  and  two  or  three  priests. 

We  have  seen  elsewhere  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
Rev.  John  England,  parish  priest  of  Bandon,  Ireland,  was 
chosen  (July  11,  1820)  to  become  the  first  Bishop  of 
Charleston.  He  was  a  man  of  great  native  talents  and 
wide  experience  in  many  departments  of  priestly  labor. 
His  ancestry  had  suffered  for  church  and  country,  and 
England  liimself  had  inherited  their  spirit  of  faith  and  love 
of  libert)'.  Two  facts  prove  this :  he  opposed  the  move- 
ment to  allow  the  British  government  a  veto  on  the  nom- 
ination of  Irish  bishops;  he  refused  to  take  the  usual  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  king  of  England  at  his  consecration 
in  Cork,  September  21,  1820.  Rather  than  take  such  an 
oath,  he  declared  he  would  seek  consecration  elsewhere, 
for  he  meant  to  become  an  American  citizen  as  soon  as 
possible  after  landing  in  the  United  States.  He  arrived 
in  Charleston,  December  30,  1820,  and  from  that  moment 
no  man  in  the  land  was  a  greater  and  truer  American  than 
John  England. 

His  diocese  comprised  the  two  Carolinas  and  Georgia. 


JOUX  ENGLAND.  307 

In  Georgia  there  were  but  three  points  where  a  few  Cath- 
oHcs  were  to  be  found — Savannah,  Augusta,  and  Locust 
Point — and  only  two  priests  were  resident  in  the  State. 
In  South  CaroHna,  outside  of  Charleston,  the  only  place 
where  Catholics  were  found  was  Columbia,  the  capital,  and 
they  were  in  such  small  number  that  they  could  not  sup- 
port a  priest.  In  North  Carolina  the  only  points  that  had 
any  Catholics  were  Santee  River,  Wilmington,  New  Berne, 
Washington,  Plymouth,  Elizabeth ;  and  so  few,  indeed, 
were  they  that  only  at  Wilmington  and  New  Berne  was 
there  any  possibility  of  the  erection  of  churches.  In  his 
travels  through  these  States  the  bishop  was  the  mission- 
ary and  the  good  shepherd.  Administering  baptism  and 
confirmation,  hearing  confessions,  preaching  in  Catholic 
churches,  where  there  were  any,  else  in  Protestant  churches 
or  public  halls,  going  out  of  his  way  to  seek  some  stray 
family  reported  to  have  been  or  to  be  Catholic — such  were 
the  ordinary  occupations  that  made  his  life  of  visitations 
one  worthy  of  the  apostolic  days. 

The  wants  and  dangers  of  his  diocese,  being  now  well 
known  to  him,  set  his  active  mind  in  search  of  supplies  and 
remedies.  The  Catholics  in  his  charge  were  few ;  they 
were  scattered ;  they  were  sinking  by  the  very  force  of 
circumstances  into  indifference  and  loss  of  faith.  Priests 
were  scarce,  and,  had  they  been  more  numerous,  how 
could  the  feeble  aggregations  of  faithful  support  them  ? 
Bishop  England  had  recourse  to  the  press  as  a  substitute 
for  the  priest,  organized  a  book  society,  and  founded  the 
"  United  States  Catholic  Miscellan}-,"  the  pioneer  of  Cath- 
olic newspapers,  which  lasted  until  the  Q,\\\\  War.  The 
works  of  Bishop  England  testify  to  his  own  literary  activ- 
ity, reveal  the  vast  extent  of  his  learning  and  interest  in 
religious  and  national  questions,  and  show  what  a  power 
for  good  he  was  in  the  land.* 


308  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

In  the  South  as  in  the  North  trusteeism  was  a  present 
evil  and  a  threat  for  the  future.  England  did  not  stop  to 
quarrel  with  the  trustees  of  the  one  church  he  found  in 
Charleston  on  his  arrival.  He  quietly  ignored  them,  and 
having  secured  an  eligible  site,  proceeded  to  erect  a  tem- 
porary chapel  for  a  cathedral,  and,  alongside  of  the  church, 
the  Philosophical  and  Classical  Seminary  of  Charleston, 
an  institution  that  attained  some  fame  and  flourished  for 
years,  in  which  the  bishop  at  first  was  not  only  president, 
but  professor  of  almost  all  the  departments.  Adding  leg- 
islation to  action,  he  ordained  that  as  to  churches  to  be 
thereafter  erected  no  priest  should  be  allowed  to  officiate 
therein  unless  a  deed  to  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  was  first 
executed.  Then  shortly  he  took  a  further  step,  and  seek- 
ing to  secure  the  protection  of  the  law  for  the  church's 
rights,  he  drew  up,  after  long  study  and  deliberation,  the 
"  Constitution  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Churches  of  the 
States  of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia; 
which  are  comprised  in  the  diocese  of  Charleston,  and 
province  of  Baltimore,  U.  S.  A."  The  object  was  to  lay 
down  the  general  principles  of  the  law  of  the  Catholic 
Church  as  to  the  mode  of  raising,  vesting,  and  managing 
church  property  ;  to  fix  the  special  manner  in  which  the 
great  principles  that  are  recognized  by  the  church  should 
be  carried  into  practice  in  this  country.  This  was  done 
by  consultation,  discussion,  and  arrangement  between  the 
bishop,  the  clergy,  and  the  laity  in  several  meetings. 
Acts  of  incorporation  embodying  these  views  were  passed 
between  the  years  1823-25  in  the  legislatures  of  the  three 
States  comprised  in  the  diocese  of  Charleston  ;  and  thus 
the  plague  of  trusteeism  that  was  eating  out  the  church's 
heart  in  the  North  was  removed  from  the  South. 

The  action  of  the  bishop  in  regard  to  the  property  rights 
of  the  church  reveals  how  thoroughly  he  understood  the 


CIIEVERUS,  JJ/SJ/OJ'   OF  BOSTON.  3O9 

conditions  in  which  he  Hved,  the  character  and  temper  of 
the  government  and  people  of  the  United  States.  He 
was  truly,  in  his  loves,  his  views,  his  modes  of  proceeding, 
a  thorough  American.  The  whole  country  did  him  the 
justice  to  acknowledge  this.  Let  one  fact  among  many 
stand  as  proof.  In  the  winter  of  1825-26,  while  in  Wash- 
ington, he  was  invited  to  address  the  members  of  Congress 
from  the  floor  of  the  Hall  of  Representatives.  He  ac- 
cepted, and  on  Sunday,  January  8th,  preached  to  them  a 
discourse  which  is  to  be  found  among  his  works.  Such 
an  honor  has  been  rare  in  the  history  of  Congress.  When 
the  Provincial  Council  was  about  to  convene.  Bishop  Eng- 
land, after  gigantic  efi'orts  in  his  diocese,  had  small  success 
to  show  in  material  results,  though  no  member  of  the 
hierarchy  stood  higher  in  public  esteem  for  talents  and 
energy.  The  South,  because  of  slavery,  was  not  then  and 
has  not  yet  become  the  field  in  which  Catholicity  was 
to  flourish.  Three  churches  in  South  Carolina,  three  in 
Georgia,  two  in  North  Carolina,  eight  in  all,  about  as  many 
priests — that  was  all  in  the  material  order  after  years  of 
labor. 

The  diocese  of  Boston,  comprising  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts, 
which  at  the  time  included  Maine,  was  erected  by  the  bull 
Ex  dcbito  Pastoralis  Officii  of  Pius  VII.,  December  8, 
1808.  The  first  bishop  was  John  Lefebvre  Cheverus,  a 
native  of  France,  who  for  twelve  years  previous  to  his 
promotion  had  labored  zealously  among  the  few  and  scat- 
tered Catholics  of  New  England.  In  his  vast  diocese  there 
were  but  three  churches — Holy  Cross,  his  cathedral  in 
Boston,  St.  Patrick's  at  New  Castle,  Me.,  and  a  log  chapel 
in  the  Indian  village  of  Pleasant  Point,  Me.  The  Catholics 
in  Boston  numbered  about  seven  hundred  souls ;  smaller 


3 1 0  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

communities  were  to  be  found  at  various  points — Salem, 
Newburyport,  Damariscotta,  Portland,  Portsmouth,  Bristol, 
Providence,  and  Pawtucket,  not  to  mention  again  the  In- 
dian missions  of  Maine. 

Much  of  his  time  was  given  to  episcopal,  or  rather  mis- 
sionary, visitations  of  those  widely  separated  congregations ; 
his  moments  of  rest  in  his  episcopal  city  were  spent  in  a 
most  simple  and  mortified  mode  of  life.  A  single  apart- 
ment was  his  sleeping  and  reception  room,  "  his  episcopal 
palace  open  to  all  the  world."  His  dress  and  table  were 
of  the  plainest ;  he  was  his  own  servant,  and  was  known 
on  occasions  to  become  the  servant  and  nurse  of  his  neigh- 
bors in  distress  and  sickness.  His  apostolic  life  no  less 
than  his  strong  and  eloquent  preaching  preserved  and 
encouraged  his  flock,  brought  to  the  faith  converts  from 
Protestantism,  and  gradually  softened  prejudices.  Such 
was  the  success  of  his  labors  that  in  1820  his  flock  num- 
bered 2120  in  Boston  and  about  looo  in  Maine. 

Those  results  were  due  also  in  no  small  degree  to  the 
few  zealous  priests  he  had  gathered  about  him,  one  of 
whom  deserves  to  be  mentioned — the  Rev.  Francis  A. 
Matignon,  a  Frenchman,  whose  death  in  18 18  was  a  severe 
blow  to  the  bishop  and  an  irreparable  loss  to  the  diocese. 
The  trying  labors  of  the  American  missions  had  impaired 
the  health  of  Cheverus.  His  friends  at  home,  as  well  as 
the  French  minister  in  Washington,  hoping  that  the  air  of 
his  native  land  might  restore,  or  at  least  prolong,  a  life  so 
useful  to  the  church,  procured,  much  against  his  will,  his 
translation  to  the  see  of  Montauban,  France.  In  1823  he 
left  Boston,  followed  by  the  love  of  his  flock,  the  esteem 
of  his  non-Catholic  friends  and  admirers,  and  the  regret  of 
the  whole  community.  For  two  years  the  affairs  of  the 
diocese  were  in  the  hands  of  an  administrator,  the  Very 
Rev.  William  Taylor,  until  the  consecration  (November  i, 


FENWICK,  BISHOP   OF  BOSTON.  3  1  I 

1825)  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Benedict  Joseph  Fenwick,  who  had 
been  recommended  to  the  holy  see  by  the  MetropoHtan  of 
Baltimore  and  his  suffragans  as  a  fit  successor  to  the  saintly 
Cheverus. 

Fenwick  was  a  native  of  Maryland,  a  lineal  descendant 
of  one  of  the  original  settlers  under  the  charter  of  Lord 
Baltimore,  and  was  one  of  the  first  band  of  six  who  entered 
the  Jesuit  novitiate  at  Georgetown  after  the  reorganization 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  this  country  and  its  affiliation  to 
the  remnant  of  the  society  preserved  in  Russia.  On  tak- 
ing  possession  of  his  see  he  described  the  situation  in 
a  memorandum  :  "  The  diocese  of  Boston  comprehends  all 
the  New  England  States.  The  Catholics  reside  principally 
in  Boston.  At  present  there  are  in  all  the  diocese  but 
eight  churches,  all  of  which,  with  the  exception  of  the 
cathedral,  scarcely  deserve  the  name."  He  had  but  three 
priests  in  his  vast  diocese,  one  near  him  in  Boston,  and 
the  others  hundreds  of  miles  away.  Happily,  two  more 
priests  came  to  him,  whom  he  sent,  one  to  the  Indians  of 
Maine,  the  other  to  Salem.  Presently  three  young  men 
presented  themselves  as  candidates  for  the  priesthood ; 
they  were  the  first  seminarians  of  Boston.  The  bishop 
himself  took  in  hand  their  training,  and  became  superior 
of  seminary  and  general  professor  of  theology.  What 
between  his  lessons  to  the  seminarians,  his  parochial  work, 
his  duties  as  chaplain  to  the  Ursuline  nuns,  his  occupation 
as  architect  and  builder  of  an  addition  to  the  cathedral  and 
of  a  convent,  his  life  was  a  busy  one  when  in  Boston  ;  and, 
naturally,  no  less  busy  was  it  when  he  was  out  of  his 
episcopal  city  on  the  visitation  of  his  diocese.  Catholics 
were  increasing  faster  than  the  clergy.  He  found  them 
in  greater  or  lesser  number  in  the  principal  towns  of  New 
England — Lowell,  Fort  Adams,  Newport,  Fall  River, 
Windsor  Locks,  Taunton,  Providence,  Hartford.     To  pro- 


0 


1 2  THE  ROMAN  CA  TJ/OLICS,  [Chap.  XX. 


vide  these  small  groups  of  faithful  with  churches  or  places 
of  meeting  was  a  heavy  task.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
within  one  year  (1827)  he  secured  church  buildings  in 
three  cities  that  to-day  are  sees  of  flourishing  dioceses — 
Hartford,  Portland,  and  Providence.  But  to  provide  the 
growing  communities  with  priests  was  a  still  harder  task. 
For  this  purpose  he  addressed  himself  to  New  York,  Bal- 
timore, Quebec,  but  without  success ;  for  the  same  dearth 
affected  the  rest  of  the  country.  He  had  greater  happi- 
ness in  the  results  of  his  own  labors;  in  December,  1827, 
he  ordained  three  of  the  seminarians  he  had  trained.  The 
statistics  of  the  year  1828  tell  better  than  any  details  I 
might  give  what  had  been  since  his  consecration  the  prog- 
ress of  the  church  in  his  diocese.  It  contained  in  1828 
14,000  Catholics,  of  whom  7,000  were  in  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton, 16  churches,  8  priests,  7  or  8  schools,  with  an  Ursu- 
line  Academy  for  the  higher  education  of  girls  in  Boston. 
To  these  institutions  we  may  add  a  weekly  newspaper, 
the  "Jesuit,"  founded  by  the  bishop  in  September,  1829. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  his  diocese  when  he  set  out  for 
the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore. 

The  diocese  of  New  York,  comprising  the  State  of  New 
York  and  the  eastern  part  of  New  Jersey,  was  erected, 
April,  1808,  by  his  Holiness  Pius  VII.  Father  Richard 
Luke  Concanen,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  residing  in 
Rome  at  the  time,  as  the  agent  of  the  Irish  hierarchy,  was 
chosen  for  the  see  through  the  influences  I  have  already 
mentioned,  and  consecrated  in  Rome,  April  24,  1808.  But 
he  never  reached  the  shores  of  the  United  States.  The 
political  condition  of  Italy  was  disturbed  by  the  French 
occupation.  Vessels  sailing  from  Italian  ports  for  America 
were  rare,  and  difficulties  were  raised  as  to  the  bishop's 


FATIULR  KOHLMAN  IN  NEW    YORK.  313 

passports.  He  fell  ill  of  fever  in  Naples,  and  died  there, 
June  19,  1 8 10. 

Meanwhile  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  dio- 
cese was  in  the  hands  of  Father  Anthony  Kohlman,  S.J., 
appointed  to  this  charge  by  Archbishop  Carroll.  He 
found  the  parish  of  St.  Peter's  to  contain  fourteen  thou- 
sand souls.  Deeming  a  second  church  absolutely  neces- 
sary, he  purchased  ground  between  Broadway  and  the 
liowery  Road,  then  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and  there- 
on was  built  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral.  P^ather  Kohlman, 
during  the  years  of  his  administration,  had  as  co-laborer 
Father  Fenwick,  who  afterward  became  Bishop  of  Boston, 
lioth  came  into  a  strange  relation  with  the  famous  infidel, 
Thomas  Paine.  It  was  their  visit  to  his  death-bed,  at  the 
invitation  of  the  dying  man,  who  imagined  they  might 
relieve  his  bodily  sufferings.  They  tried  to  bring  him  to 
Christian  sentiments,  but  did  not  succeed  in  their  mission- 
ary attempt. 

While  he  was  in  New  York  as  administrator,  before  the 
bishop's  arrival,  Father  Kohlman  became  the  hero  of  a 
cause  celcbrc  which  implied  the  rights  of  a  Catholic  priest 
in  regard  to  the  secret  of  the  confessional.  A  man  and 
his  wife  were  indicted  for  receiving  stolen  goods,  but  be- 
fore trial  the  owner  of  the  property  acknowledged  that 
he  had  received  his  property  back  from  the  hands  of  Rev. 
Anthony  Kohlman.  The  clergyman  was  subpoenaed  to 
appear  at  the  trial  as  a  witness  against  the  supposed  thie\es 
or  receivers  of  the  stolen  property.  When  called  to  th.e 
witness-box,  Rev.  Mr.  Kohlman  asked  to  be  excused  from 
answering,  and  said  :  "  Were  I  summoned  to  give  evidence 
as  a  private  individual  (in  which  capacity  I  declare  most 
solemnly  I  know  nothing  relative  to  the  case  before  the 
court),  and  to  testify  from  these  ordinary  sources  of  infor- 


314  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  XX. 

mation,  from  which  the  witnesses  present  have  derived 
theirs,  I  should  not  for  a  moment  hesitate,  and  should 
even  deem  it  a  duty  of  conscience,  to  declare  whatever 
knowledge  I  might  have.  But  if  called  upon  to  testify  in 
quality  of  a  minister  of  a  sacrament,  in  which  my  God 
himself  has  enjoined  on  me  a  perpetual  and  inviolable 
secrecy,  I  must  declare  to  this  honorable  court  that  I  can- 
not, I  must  not,  answer  any  question  that  has  a  bearing 
upon  the  restitution  in  question ;  and  that  it  would  be  my 
duty  to  prefer  instantaneous  death,  or  any  temporal  mis- 
fortune, rather  than  disclose  the  name  of  the  penitent  in 
question.  For,  were  I  to  act  otherwise,  I  should  become 
a  traitor  to  my  church,  to  my  sacred  ministry,  and  to  my 
God.  In  fine,  I  should  render  myself  guilty  of  eternal 
damnation."  The  court,  through  the  Hon.  De  Witt 
Clinton,  who  presided,  carefully  reviewed  the  whole  case, 
and  decided  that  a  priest  could  not  be  called  upon  to  testify 
as  to  matters  which  he  knew  only  through  the  confessional. 
Though  consecrated  in  Rome,  November  6,  1814,  Bishop 
Connolly  did  not  reach  New  York  until  a  year  or  more 
later.  We  were  at  the  time  at  war  with  England,  and 
Connolly,  being  a  British  subject,  feared  to  come  to  the 
United  States  until  peace  was  signed.  His  arrival  was  the 
signal  for  the  departure  of  the  few  Jesuits  in  New  York ; 
only  four  priests  remained  in  the  vast  diocese,  two  of 
whom  were  with  the  bishop  in  the  city,  which  contained 
at  the  time  fourteen  or  fifteen  thousand  Catholics.  Even 
then  Catholic  emigrants  were  beginning  to  come  to  the 
United  States ;  the  larger  number,  indeed,  to  drift  farther 
inward,  not  a  few,  however,  to  remain  in  the  port  where 
they  landed.  Great  was  the  bishop's  concern,  and  not 
very  successful  his  appeals  to  Ireland  and  the  other  states, 
to  provide  clergymen  for  this  constantly  increasing  popu- 
lation. 


BISHOP  DUBOIS.  315 

Small  as  was  the  number  of  his  priests,  yet  Bishop 
Connolly  had  to  suffer  from  some  of  them  a  violent  oppo- 
sition, backed  by  the  rebellion  of  the  trustees  of  the  two 
churches  of  the  city,  St.  Peter's  and  St.  Patrick's.  "  The 
whole  affair,"  says  Gilmary  Shea,  "  was  a  sad  commentary 
on  the  introduction  of  national  preferences  into  the  affairs 
of  the  church.  Bishop  Connolly  had  been  selected  to  ap- 
pease the  complaints  made  to  Rome  by  unworthy  priests 
and  pretentious  laymen  ;  he  had  drawn  into  his  diocese 
none  but  priests  of  his  own  nationality  ;  yet  he  found  him- 
self denounced  by  his  own  to  the  Propaganda,  and  found 
a  fellow-countryman  aiming  to  supersede  him."  Bishop 
Connolly  succumbed,  February  6,  1825,  to  a  disease  con- 
tracted at  the  burial  of  one  of  his  priests. 

After  a  year  and  a  half's  vacancy,  during  which  inter- 
val the  diocese  was  administered  by  the  Very  Rev.  John 
Power,  New  York  received  its  third  bishop  in  the  person 
of  John  Dubois,  consecrated  in  Baltimore  October  29, 
1826.  Born  in  Paris,  August  24,  1764,  educated  at  the 
College  of  Louis  le  Grand  with  such  school-fellows  as 
Desmoulins  and  Robespierre,  ordained  in  Paris  August 
22,  1787,  John  Dubois  labored  in  the  parish  of  St.  Sulpice 
until  1 79 1,  when,  fleeing  from  the  terrors  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, he  came  to  the  United  States  with  letters  of  recom- 
mendation from  Lafayette  to  the  leading  American  states- 
men of  the  day.  Adopted  into  the  diocese  by  Bishop 
Carroll,  he  labored  in  various  missions  around  Baltimore, 
built  a  college  at  Emmitsburg,  and  there  devoted  himself 
to  the  training  of  the  clergy. 

On  his  arrival  in  New  York  he  estimated  the  Catholics 
in  the  city  at  twenty-five  thousand,  and  throughout  the 
diocese  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  Churches, 
priests,  and  schools  were  wanting  for  this  large  number  of 
faithful.      New  York  City  had  but  six  priests ;  the  diocese 


3l6  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

outside  the  city  had  but  four.  It  is  strange  to  read  in 
the  account  of  his  first  episcopal  visitation  that  Albany, 
Rochester,  and  Buffalo  seventy  years  ago,  though  con- 
taining each  a  few  hundred  Catholics,  were  without  resident 
clergymen  ;  that  Newark,  Paterson,  and  New  Brunswick 
were  only  then  moving  to  the  first  steps  for  the  building  of 
small  churches;  that  the  one  modest  chapel  in  Brooklyn, 
built  in  1823,  was  visited  occasionally  by  priests  from  New 
York. 

In  every  effort  that  the  bishop  made  to  erect  churches 
and  schools  he  was  hampered  by  the  trustee  system,  which 
claimed  that  he  must  surrender  the  whole  control  of  the 
newly  formed  congregations  to  a  board  of  laymen  ;  a  sys- 
tem which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  had  produced  evils 
in  other  places,  and  was  yet  to  inflict  irreparable  woes  and 
losses  on  the  church  in  the  United  States  ere  it  gave  way 
before  the  persevering  opposition  of  the  hierarchy.  To 
find  some  remedy  for  this  deplorable  condition,  as  well  as 
to  secure  a  seminary  for  the  supply  of  clergymen  to  the 
fast-increasing  number  of  the  faithful  in  his  diocese  (he 
had  at  this  time  but  eighteen  priests  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  Catholics),  Bishop  Dubois  felt  compelled  to 
forego  attendance  on  the  Provincial  Council  about  to  con- 
vene in  Baltimore,  in  order  that  he  might  repair  to  Rome 
and  lay  the  state  of  his  charge  before  the  Propaganda, 
which,  at  any  rate,  had  requested  his  presence  in  the 
Eternal  City  at  an  early  date. 

At  the  time  of  its  erection  (1808)  the  diocese  of  Phila- 
delphia comprised  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware.  The  first 
bishop,  recommended  by  Archbishop  Carroll  and  con- 
firmed by  the  holy  see,  was  the  Rev.  Michael  Egan,  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis,  who  had  been  for  some  years  on  the 
missions  in  Pennsylvania.  When  the  see  of  Philadelphia 
Avas  established  there  were  in  the  city  four  churches  at- 
tended by  six  priests,  and  outside  of  the  city  seven  priests 


BISHOP   COX  WELL.  317 

residing  near  as  many  churches.  The  first  episcopal  visita- 
tion made  by  Bishop  Egan  revealed  to  him  the  absolute 
need  of  a  greater  number  of  clergymen  if  the  scattered 
Catholics  of  his  charge  were  to  be  preserved  in  the  prac- 
tices of  their  faith.  "  Without  some  timely  aid,"  he  wrote 
to  his  metropolitan,  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore,  "  from 
Plurope,  particularly  from  Ireland,  I  know  not  how  to 
provide  for  the  necessities  of  this  diocese." 

But  a  greater  evil  than  the  lack  of  priests  threatened 
his  administration — the  rebellion  of  the  trustees  of  his 
cathedral,  the  disobedience  of  the  priests  supported  by 
them,  and  a  schism  that  destroyed  the  faith  of  many  and 
for  years  paralyzed  the  progress  of  the  church  in  Phila- 
delphia. The  trustees  of  St.  Mary's,  the  cathedral,  had 
promised  Archbishop  Carroll,  previous  to  the  consecration 
of  Dr.  Egan,  to  secure  to  the  new  bishop  one  half  of  an 
annual  salary  of  eight  hundred  dollars.  But  no  sooner 
was  he  settled  in  his  see  than  the  trustees,  claiming  to  be 
the  owners  of  the  cathedral,  refused  to  pay  the  salary,  and 
demanded  the  removal  of  one  of  the  two  assistant  priests 
on  the  ground  that  there  were  not  sufficient  funds  for  his 
entertainment.  This  action  precipitated  the  war.  The 
bishop  appealed  to  the  pew-holders  ;  the  trustees  stood  out 
against  the  bishop  and  the  pew-holders.  The  worry  of  it 
all  hastened  the  bishop's  death  (July  22,  18 14). 

There  was  no  little  difficulty  in  finding  a  man  willing  to 
assume  the  onerous  task  of  governing  so  troublesome  a 
diocese  as  Philadelphia  proved  itself  to  be.  The  Rev. 
Ambrose  Marechal  was  first  appointed,  but  he  declined 
and  returned  the  bulls.  The  Rev.  John  David,  afterward 
Coadjutor  of  Louisville,  refused  the  nomination.  The 
Very  Rev.  Administrator  of  the  see  pending  the  vacancy 
received  bulls  of  appointment  in  18 18;  but  he,  too,  re- 
fused the  honor,  through  a  sense  of  deep  humilit}-  and  of 
the  difficulties  of  which  he  was  having  a  sad  experience. 


3 1 8  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

Finally,  in  November,  1819,  the  Very  Rev.  Henry 
Conwell,  Vicar  General  of  Armagh,  Ireland,  was  chosen 
by  the  holy  see,  and  consecrated  in  London,  August  24, 
1820.  He  was  at  the  time  seventy-four  years  of  age, 
too  old  for  the  severe  struggle  that  lay  before  him ; 
moreover,  he  lacked  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the 
people  he  had  to  deal  with ;  we  shall  see,  too,  that  he 
did  not  possess  that  keenness  of  judgment  and  firmness 
of  will  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  succeed  in  a  con- 
flict with  human  pride  and  obstinacy. 

Soon  after  his  installation  Bishop  Conwell  withdrew 
from  the  Rev.  William  Hogan,  one  of  the  priests  of  the 
cathedral,  the  faculties  that  had  been  temporarily  granted 
to  him  by  the  Very  Rev.  Administrator  during  the 
vacancy.  The  reason  for  his  action  is  stated  to  have 
been  that  Hogan  openly  ridiculed  the  bishop  from  the 
pulpit  for  his  simplicity  and  a  slight  hesitation  in  speech. 
Thereupon  began  between  the  bishop  and  the  trustees  of 
the  cathedral  an  ecclesiastical  war  that  lasted  nine  years 
and  inflicted  great  evils  on  the  church  in  Philadelphia. 
Rev.  William  Hogan  had  the  trustees  on  his  side.  They 
called  a  public  meeting,  which  adopted  an  address  to  the 
bishop,  asking  the  restoration  of  Hogan.  The  bishop,  in 
a  mild  but  firm  reply,  declared  that  in  suspending  Hogan 
he  acted  under  a  sense  of  duty.  Hogan  then  issued  an 
address  attacking  the  character  of  the  bishop,  and  went 
on  to  cite  extracts  from  the  "  Corpus  Juris  Canonici  "  to 
prove  that  he  was  a  parish  priest  and  that  canon  law  was 
established  in  this  country,  when  in  fact  it  never  had  been. 
He  also  called  upon  Archbishop  Marechal  to  convene  a 
Provincial  Council  of  all  the  bishops  to  examine  his  case, 
and  forged  an  absurd  pastoral  letter,  ascribed  to  Bishop 
Conwell. 

This  was  forcing  on  the  war  with  a  vengeance,  and  so 


THE   HOG  AX  SCHISM. 


310 


Bishop  Conwell  gave  notice  to  the  congregation  of  the 
canonical  steps  he  had  taken  in  the  case  of  the  refractory 
priest,  and  warned  them  against  employing  his  ministry  or 
attending  any  service  that  he  might  attempt  to  hold  while 
suspended.  Bad  as  Hogan  was,  the  men  who  supported 
him  were  far  worse.  Bishop  England  says  of  them  that 
they  never  discharged  a  single  duty  of  their  religion ;  that 
they  and  the  other  members  of  their  party  were  not  only 
negligent  in  the  performance  of  positive  duty,  but,  either 
from  ignorance  of  the  principles  of  the  religion  which  they 
professed,  or  from  an  utter  dislike  for  them,  were  hostile  to 
Catholic  discipline.  Hogan  declared  later  on  to  Bishop 
England  that  he  never  intended  opposing  his  bishop,  but 
that  the  trustees  prevailed  on  him  to  do  so,  and  that  the 
dread  of  their  vengeance  and  exposure  kept  him  in  a  place 
which  was  to  him  the  worst  species  of  slavery,  and  from 
which  he  was  anxious  to  escape.  They  persuaded  him 
to  continue  his  functions  in  St.  Mary's  Church,  though 
he  declared  that  he  had  no  longer  any  faculties  in  the 
diocese  of  Philadelphia.  Bishop  Conwell  gave  him  written 
notice  that  he  would  be  excommunicated  on  his  first  at- 
tempt to  perform  any  ministrations  as  pastor  of  St.  Mary's  ; 
but  Hogan  disregarded  the  warning  and  went  on  with  his 
pastoral  functions.  This  was  nothing  less  than  schism, 
and  Bishop  Conwell,  after  giving  Hogan  another  monition, 
proceeded  to  the  step  of  final  excommunication,  which 
was  formally  pronounced  in  St.  Augustine's  Church  on 
the  27th  of  May,  1822. 

Aware  that  there  were  turbulent  men  like  themselves 
in  New  York,  Norfolk,  and  Charleston,  the  Philadelphia 
ringleaders,  Leamy,  Ashley,  Meade,  and  others,  endeav- 
ored to  make  the  schism  general  in  the  church  in  the 
United  States.  They  issued  an  address  which  stands  as 
a  perpetual  monument  of  their  iniquity.     It  was  entitled 


320  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 


0 


"  Address  of  the  Committee  of  St.  Mary's  Church  of  Phil- 
adelphia to  their  Brethren  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Faith 
throughout  the  United  States  of  America,  on  the  Subject 
of  a  Reform  of  Certain  Abuses  in  the  Administration  of 
our  Church  Discipline."  "  Owing,"  they  write,  "  to  the 
arbitrary  and  unjustifiable  conduct  of  certain  foreigners, 
sent  among  us  by  the  Junta  or  Commission  directing  the 
Fide  Propaganda  of  Rome,  we  are  imperiously  called  upon 
to  adopt  some  measures  by  which  a  uniform  system  may 
be  established  for  the  future  regulation  of  our  churches 
and  the  propagation  of  our  holy  faith  by  the  nomination 
and  selection  of  proper  pastors  from  our  own  citizens,  from 
whom  alone  ought  to  be  chosen  our  bishops,  without  our 
being  compelled  to  depend  on  persons  sent  to  us  from 
abroad,  who  have  uniformly  shown  themselves  hostile  to 
our  institutions."  After  stigmatizing  the  bishops  of  the 
country  as  "a  disgrace  to  our  religion,"  who  attempted 
to  introduce  "  superstition  and  ignorance,"  they  had  the 
effrontery  to  speak  for  the  Catholics  of  the  United  States 
and  assume  to  represent  them.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
this  anti-Catholic  and  revolutionary  appeal  met  with  no 
encouraging  response  from  any  part  of  the  United  States. 
It  was  in  \'ain  that  Bishop  England  interposed  his  good 
offices  to  bring  about  a  cessation  of  the  scandal.  Tiie 
trustees  were  relentless  and  Hogan  was  their  blind  tool. 

After  this  the  tide  of  public  opinion  was  set  against  the 
trustees,  who  saw  many  of  their  deluded  adherents  fall 
away,  and  felt  their  position  growing  insecure.  Soon 
Hogan  himself  proposed  to  leave  Philadelphia  on  being- 
absolved  from  censure  by  Bishop  Conwell ;  but  his  good 
resolution  was  prevented  b}-  the  trustees.  At  the  time 
when  the  unfortunate  priest  was  thus  throwing  away  his 
last  hope  of  being  able  to  persevere  in  his  vocation  and 
ministry,  the   Holy  Father,  Pope  Pius  VII.,  by  his  brief 


TRUSTEEISM   COXDEMXED   BY  ROME.  32  I 

Non  sine  i)iag)io,  addressed  to  Archbishop  Marcchal, 
his  suffragans,  all  boards  of  trustees,  and  the  faithful  in 
general,  condemned  Hogan  U^x  his  attack  on  the  bishop, 
for  withdrawing"  the  faithful  from  their  lawful  pastor,  for 
calling  a  council  ot  bishops  to  depose  his  bishop,  and, 
finally,  for  intruding  himself  into  the  cathedral  church,  from 
which  he  had  expelled  the  bishop.  The  sovereign  pontiff 
expressed  astonishment  and  indignation  that  "  in  so  mani^ 
fest  a  contempt  for  all  law  he  could  find  any  followers, 
supporters,  and  defenders  of  his  pride  and  contumacy." 
The  Pope  declared  all  the  acts  .sacrilegiously  and  daringly 
performed  by  Hogan  to  be  null  and  void.  The  immod- 
erate right  which  trustees  or  the  administrators  of  the 
temporal  properties  of  churches  assume,  independently  of 
the  diocesan  bishops,  unless  it  be  circumscribed  by  certain 
regulations,  may  prove  an  eternal  source  of  abuses  and 
dissensions.  Trustees  ought  to  bear  in  ■  mind  that  the 
properties  which  have  been  consecrated  to  divine  w^orship, 
for  the  support  of  the  church,  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
its  ministers  fall  under  the  power  of  the  church;  and  since 
the  bishops,  by  di\'ine  appointment,  preside  over  their 
respective  churches,  they  cannot  by  any  means  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  care,  superintendence,  and  administration 
of  these  properties.  The  lay  element  has  a  place  and 
office  in  the  administration  of  temporalities  described  and 
sanctioned  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  If  the  trustees  in  the 
United  States  were  to  administer  the  temporalities  of  the 
church  in  conformity  to  the  council's  decrees,  and  in  union 
of  mind  and  heart  with  the  bishop,  everything  w^ould  be 
performed  peaceably  and  according  to  order.  But  trus- 
teeism  in  the  United  States  has  not  been  of  this  character. 
"  In  order,  then,  to  avoid  the  dissensions  and  disturbances 
which  frequently  arise  from  the  unbounded  power  of  trus- 
tees, we   ha\e   provided,  venerable  brothers,  that   certain 


2^22  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xx. 

regulations  and  instructions  concerning  the  choice  and 
direction  of  trustees  should  be  transmitted  to  you.  If 
these  be  observed,  all  things,  we  hope,  will  be  settled 
rightly,  and  peace  and  tranquillity  will  again  flourish  in 
these  regions." 

Rev.  Mr.  Hogan,  when  the  brief  was  made  known  to 
him,  showed  a  disposition  to  submit  and  put  an  end  to  the 
schism ;  but  the  malign  influence  of  the  trustees  again 
prexailed  for  a  while  over  the  unfortunate  priest's  better 
sentiments.  Wearied  finally  by  the  struggle,  he  resigned. 
The  trustees  accepted  his  resignation  and  proceeded,  in 
the  very  face  of  the  brief  of  Pope  Pius  VII.,  to  appoint  as 
pastor  of  St.  Mary's  Church  an  unworthy  adventurer,  Rev. 
A.  Inglesi,  who  had  imposed  upon  Bishop  Du  Bourg,  of 
New  Orleans,  and  whose  career  had  been  fully  exposed  at 
Rome.  But  he  came  in  that  city  with  means,  secured 
the  support  of  the  Sardinian  consul  in  that  city,  and 
pleased  the  trustees,  who  did  not  even  go  through  the 
form  of  presenting  him  for  the  bishop's  approval.  But 
soon  finding  Inglesi  not  suited  to  their  purposes,  they  in- 
vited from  England  a  certain  Rev.  Thaddeus  J.  O'Meally, 
and,  though  Bishop  Conwell  declined  to  receive  him  as  a 
priest  of  the  diocese,  they  prevailed  upon  him,  in  spite  of 
the  bishop's  formal  prohibition,  to  officiate  in  St.  Mary's. 
He  persisted  in  his  sacrilegious  course  for  more  than  a 
year. 

Since  the  laity,  the  clergy,  the  hierarchy  of  the  United 
States,  the  cardinals  of  the  Propaganda,  and  the  sovereign 
pontiff  himself  declared  them  to  be  in  error,  the  trustees 
began  to  realize  the  fact  that  they  must  yield.  They 
opened  negotiations  with  the  bishop,  actually  agreeing  to 
recognize  him  as  Bishop  of  Philadelphia,  to  acknowledge 
him  as  senior  pastor  of  the  church,  and  to  admit  his  right 
to  appoint  priests  to  St.  Mary's  Church  ;  but  they  proposed 


MISTAKE    OF  BISHOP   CAXWELL.  323 

that,  in  case  they  objected  to  the  bishop's  selection  of 
clergymen,  the  matter  was  to  be  decided  by  a  committee 
composed  of  the  bishop,  two  priests  chosen  by  him,  and 
three  trustees  selected  by  the  board.  To  this  Bishop 
Conwell,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  agreed.  But  the  dishonest 
leaders,  without  the  bishop's  knowledge,  it  appears,  entered 
on  their  minutes  a  protest  virtually  nuUifying  the  agree- 
ment, in  which  they  declared  that  they  did  not  recognize 
the  bishop  as  the  chief  pastor  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  or 
renounce  their  right  to  appoint  the  clergy.  When  the 
agreement  between  Bishop  Conwell  and  the  trustees,  and 
their  protest  nullifying  what  they  had  apparently  recog- 
nized in  the  agreement,  reached  Rome,  the  Propaganda,  to 
which  the  trustees  transmitted  them,  made  them  the  subject 
of  a  special  meeting  of  cardinals.  This  body  gave  as  its 
judgment  "  that  the  said  agreement  and  declaration,  which 
were  the  subject  of  debate,  were  to  be  altogether  repro- 
bated," which  decree  was  approved  by  the  Pope.  It  was 
a  condemnation  of  the  course  adopted  by  Bishop  Conwell, 
who  humbly  published  the  decree,  was  ordered  to  report 
to  Rome,  and  thereafter  ceased  to  administer  the  diocese. 
The  diocese  of  Philadelphia  contained  the  State  in  which 
from  colonial  days  religion  had  been  comparatively  free, 
where  Catholics  were  numerous  and  better  endowed  with 
the  goods  of  this  world  than  in  most  other  dioceses.  But 
the  unholy  war  waged  by  the  trustees  of  a  single  church 
against  two  successive  bishops  had  this  result :  that  in 
1829  the  diocese  was  without  a  seminary,  a  college,  a 
convent  academy  for  the  education  of  young  ladies,  and 
with  only  a  single  asylum,  few  schools,  and  a  disheartened 
people.     The  loss  of  souls  to  the  church  had  been  great. 


:4 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

THE    NORTHWEST   AND    THE    SOUTHWEST  (1808-29). 

Barustown,  once,  but  no  longer,  the  see  of  a  bishop,  is 
a  town  of  some  two  thousand  souls  in  Nelson  County,  Ken- 
tucky. Pope  Pius  VII.  erected  (April,  1808)  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  into  a  diocese,  with  the  episcopal  see  at  Bards- 
town,  and  appointed  as  its  first  bishop  the  Rev.  Benedict 
Joseph  Flaget,  a  native  of  France  and  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  St.  Sulpice.  With  two  priests  and  three  semi- 
narians he  traveled  overland  to  Pittsburg,  descended  the 
Ohio  in  a  flatboat,  and  reached  his  episcopal  city  June  4, 
181 1.  Nothing  whatever  in  the  shape  of  a  church  was  to 
be  found  there.  His  installation  in  his  cathedral  was  a 
fiction  of  law.  Besides  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  that 
formed  his  diocese,  he  had  the  temporary  administration 
of  the  "  Northwest  C'ountry,"  now  divided  into  the  States 
of  Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Ohio.  In 
the  "  Northwest  Country "  there  were  small  scattered 
Catholic  communities  at  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia,  Prairie  du 
Rocher,  111.  ;  Vincennes,  Ind. ;  Detroit,  Raisin  River, 
Mackinaw,  Mich. ;  Green  Bay,  Wis. ;  and  Sandusky,  O.  ; 
and  all  these  communities  were  attended  by  three  priests. 

This  field  was  not  unknown  to  him ;  he  had  labored  in 
it  as  a  missionary  between  the  years  i  793  and  i  795.  The 
diocese  proper  of  Bardstown,  that  is  to  say,  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee,  was  poorly  provided  in  1808,  for  it 
contained  only  ten  churches — all  but  one  of  logs — and  six 

324 


THE   DlUCIiSE    OF  BAKDSTO\VA\  325 

thousand  Catholics  served  by  six  priests.  In  181 3  the 
zealous  bishop  made  a  visitation  of  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory. Of  this  visitation  he  speaks  in  a  letter  to  Archbishop 
Carroll,  October  10,  18 14:  "My  visit  through  the  French 
settlements  has  been  very  kiborious,  but  a  hundred  times 
more  successful  than  I  would  have  expected ;  I  have  con- 
firmed about  twelve  hundred  people,  though  I  confirm 
none  but  those  who  have  made  their  first  communion. 
At  least  eight  or  ten  priests  are  wanting  in  these  immense 
countries,  and  if  some  could  be  put  among  the  Indians 
who  would  be  willing  to  receive  them,  ten  more  would 
scarcely  do.  Pray  that  God  may  send  me  proper  ministers 
to  convert  or  support  so  many  souls  that  run  to  perdition 
for  want  of  assistance."  The  bishop  heard  of  certain  small 
Catholic  congregations,  which  he  was  unable  to  visit  on 
account  of  the  disturbed  condition  of  the  country.  Chicago 
was  one  of  these ;  another  was  Prairie  du  Chien,  on  the 
upper  Mississippi.  The  southeastern  part  of  the  diocese, 
Tennessee,  contained  at  most  twenty- five  Catholic  families, 
scattered  over  a  territory  extending  from  the  western  bor- 
der of  North  Carolina  to  the  Mississippi  River. 

On  the  iith  of  April,  181 5,  he  addressed  a  touching 
letter  to  the  sovereign  pontifT,  rendering  an  account  of  the 
diocese  and  district  committed  to  his  care.  He  was  able 
to  report  that  he  had  in  Kentucky  nineteen  churches  and 
ten  priests.  Because  of  the  fluctuating  character  of  the 
population  it  was  not  easy  to  fix  the  number  of  Catholics, 
but  he  estimated  it  at  ten  thousand.  There  was  much  to 
be  done  and  no  means  to  do  it  with.  He  estimated  the 
Catholics  in  Ohio  at  fifty  families,  without  a  priest,  and 
therefore  menaced  with  a  gradual  loss  of  faith.  As  to 
Indiana,  Vincennes  had  one  hundred  and  thirty  families, 
which,  had  there  been  good  will,  might  easily  support  one 
or  two  priests ;   as  it  was,   the  place   could   only   get  an 


326  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxl. 

occasional  visit  from  Kentucky.  In  Illinois  he  estimated 
the  population  of  the  three  Catholic  parishes,  Kaskaskia, 
Cahokia,  and  Prairie  du  Rocher,  at  one  hundred  and  twenty 
families.  Detroit  had  fifteen  hundred  souls  in  St.  Ann's 
parish,  and  there  were  five  hundred  on  Raisin  River  under 
Rev.  Gabriel  Richard.  There  were  under  his  jurisdiction 
Indian  tribes  among  whom  some  traces  of  the  faith  for- 
merly preached  by  the  Jesuit  fathers  still  lingered ;  and 
stretching  away  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  beyond  the 
Mississippi,  were  other  tribes  who  were  asking  for  Black 
Robes,  and  afforded  a  field  worthy  of  the  zeal  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  just  restored  by  his  Holiness. 

Feeling  the  burden  of  this  diocese  too  heavy  a  weight 
for  him  to  bear.  Bishop  Flaget  asked  of  the  holy  see  a 
coadjutor,  and  the  Rev.  John  Baptist  David  was  appointed 
such  July  4,  i8i  7.  Not  content  with  this  rehef,  the  bishop 
recommended  the  erection  of  two  dioceses  in  the  North- 
west Territory,  one  at  Detroit,  the  other  at  Cincinnati. 
Deeming  the  erection  of  a  see  at  Detroit  inexpedient  just 
then,  the  holy  see  established  only  that  of  Cincinnati, 
and  appointed  thereto  the  Rev.  Edward  D.  Fen  wick,  O.  S., 
making  him  also  Administrator  Apostolic  of  Michigan  and 
the  eastern  part  of  the  Northwest  Territory.  Now  that 
he  was  relieved  of  part  of  his  former  charge,  and  had  a 
sufficient  clergy  to  attend  the  larger  congregations  in 
Kentucky,  Bishop  Flaget  set  out  in  May,  1821,  to  visit 
Tennessee.  The  Catholics  he  found  in  and  around  Nash- 
ville were  estimated  at  sixty,  and  not  more  than  half  as 
many  more  were  in  the  rest  of  the  State. 

In  a  letter  to  the  holy  see,  January,  1826,  he  gives  a 
lengthy  description,  which  may  be  summed  up  thus : 
Kentucky  had  fourteen  log  churches  and  ten  of  brick,  two 
bishops,  twenty-two  priests,  and  three  houses  of  study  to 
which  the  church  might  look  for  a  future  supply  of  priests. 


ERECTION  OF  CINCINNATI.     '  327 

In  Indiana  the  church  was  directed  by  Rev.  Mr.  Cham- 
paumier,  struggHng  hard  to  put  it  on  a  better  footing, 
aided  by  the  schools  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  Other 
stations  in  Indiana  were  visited  from  Kentucky ;  while  the 
priest  in  Breckenridge  County,  Kentucky,  at  least  once  a 
year,  but  as  a  rule  more  frequently,  pushed  his  visits  a 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  Nashville,  the  only  spot  in  Ten- 
nessee that  could  boast  a  Catholic  congregation.  Such 
was  the  condition  of  Catholicity  in  the  diocese  of  Bards- 
town  and  annexed  territory  when  Bishop  Flaget  set  out  to 
meet  his  brother  bishops  in  the  First  Provincial  Council 
of  Baltimore. 

By  the  bull  /uUr  Multiplices  of  June  19,  182 1,  Ohio 
was  erected  into  a  diocese,  with  the  see  in  Cincinnati.  To 
the  diocese  was  annexed  the  apostolic  administration  of  so 
much  of  the  Northwest  Territory  as  is  now  comprised  in 
the  States  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin.  The  chosen  can- 
didate, the  Rev.  Edward  D.  Fenwick,  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Dominic,  a  native  of  Maryland  and  cousin  to  B.  J.  Fen- 
wick, Bishop  of  Boston,  was  consecrated  by  Bishop  Flaget 
in  St.  Rose's  Church,  Kentucky,  January  13,  1822.  A 
poor  little  chapel  two  miles  outside  of  Cincinnati  was  his 
cathedral ;  a  rented  house  of  two  rooms  (one  for  himself 
and  the  other  for  his  two  priests)  was  his  episcopal  resi- 
dence. As  early  as  i  749  a  Jesuit,  Joseph  de  Bonnecamp, 
had  traversed  northern  and  eastern  Ohio  with  De  Blain- 
ville,  who  at  that  time  was  taking  possession  of  the  valley 
of  the  Ohio  in  the  name  of  France.  In  1751  another 
Jesuit,  Armand  de  la  Richardie,  established  a  mission 
station  at  Sandusky.  In  1795  the  Rev.  Edmund  Burke 
began  a  mission,  which  did  not  last  long,  near  Fort  Miami 
on  the  Maumee  River,  for  a  few  scattered  bands  of  Ottawa, 
Chippeway,  and  Pottowatomie  Indians.  In  i  790  a  French 
settlement  was  attempted  at  Gallipolis,  but  came  to  naught, 


328  '    THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  Xxt. 

as  we  ave  seen  elsewhere.  In  i8i  i  Bishop  Flaget  found 
a  few  CathoHcs  in  Cincinnati,  ChilHcothe,  Lancaster,  and 
Somerset,  and  prevailed  on  the  Dominicans  of  Kentucky 
to  take  charge  of  them.  In  1818  a  log  church,  St.  Joseph's, 
erected  in  Somerset  County,  and  a  two-story  log  cabin, 
became  the  cradle  and  nursery  of  Catholicity  in  Ohio. 
Gradually  small  congregations  were  formed,  as  emigrants 
from  the  East  crossed  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  in  Zanes- 
ville,  Lancaster,  Dungannon,  and  Cincinnati,  which  were 
visited  by  the  fathers  of  St.  Joseph.  Such  was  the  state 
of  Catholicity  in  Ohio  when  Bishop  Fenwick  took  posses- 
sion of  his  see. 

Wisconsin  and  Michigan  since  1642  had  been  the 
theater,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  first  part  of  this  history, 
of  the  heroic  and  romantic  labors  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries. 
In  1822,  when  this  territory  came  under  the  administration 
of  the  new  Bishop  of  Cincinnati,  the  old  mission  stations 
were  still  Catholic  centers,  containing  a  population  of 
about  forty-five  hundred  souls.  The  principal  points  were 
Detroit  and  neighboring  settlements,  Mackinaw,  Green 
Bay,  and  Prairie  du  Chien.  In  this  extensive  district  there 
were  Indians  of  the  Ottawa,  Pottowatomie,  and  Wyandot 
tribes  still  attached  to  the  Catholic  faith,  whose  number 
might  be  estimated  at  six  thousand.  That  the  tribes 
among  whom  the  Jesuits  had  labored  so  successfully  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  years  before  had  not  forgotten 
the  devotion  of  the  missionaries  and  the  teachings  of  their 
religion,  is  made  evident  from  a  touching  appeal  which 
they  sent  at  this  time  to  the  federal  authorities  for  priests 
such  as  had  come  in  former  times  to  their  forefathers. 

The  field  was  vast,  the  laborers  few.  Bishop  Fenwick 
resolved  at  once  to  go  to  Rofne  to  report  this  condition  of 
things  and  get  what  help  he  might  in  men  and  means. 
His  exertions  obtained   three   priests  as  recruits  and  ten 


THE   DIOCESE   OF  XEW  ORLEAXS.  329 

thousand  dollars.  He  was  thus  enabled  to  replace  the 
small  chapel  that  served  as  cathedral  in  Cincinnati  by  a 
brick  church  of  statelier  dimensions,  and  to  build  alongside 
of  it  a  residence  for  himself  and  a  seminary  that  went 
by  the  grand  name  of  Athenaeum.  It  was  opened  May, 
1829,  with  ten  pupils,  four  in  theology  and  six  in  the 
preparatory  class.  Meanwhile  churches  with  congrega- 
tions were  beginning  to  spring  up  all  over  the  State,  and 
Catholicity  had  made  a  fair  start  on  the  way  to  progress 
when  Bishop  Fenwick  departed  for  the  First  Provincial 
Council  of  Baltimore. 

The  Very  Rev.  Louis  du  Bourg  was  4he  Apostolic 
Administrator  of  Louisiana.  He  had  but  ten  priests,  and 
the  cathedral  of  New^  Orleans  was  in  rebellion  against  him. 
The  sad  condition  of  his  charge  demanded  the  authority 
and  rule  of  a  bishop.  Du  Bourg  in  181 5  proceeded  to 
Rome  to  lay  the  dangers  and  the  remedy  before  the  holy 
see.  In  September  of  that  year  he  was  named  Bishop  of 
New  Orleans  and  consecrated  in  Rome.  Before  his  return 
he  secured  for  a  contemplated  seminary  some  priests  of 
the  mission  commonly  known  as  Lazarists ;  inspired  in  a 
few  pious  ladies  of  Lyons  a  project  that  issued  in  the 
Association  for  the  Propagation  of  the  P^aith,  and  which  has 
since  done  noble  work  for  the  foreign  missions ;  gathered 
funds  for  his  diocese ;  got  together  a  band  of  five  priests, 
four  subdeacons,  some  seminarians,  three  brothers  of  the 
Christian  Schools ;  and  with  them  sailed  from  Bordeaux 
June  28,  181  7,  in  a  frigate  put  at  his  disposal  by  the  king 
of  P^rance.  They  landed  at  Annapolis,  traveled  overland 
to  Pittsburg,  descended  the  Ohio,  remounted  the  Missis- 
sippi to  St.  Louis,  where  the  bishop  arrived  January  5, 
1 81 8,  and  was  installed  in  his  cathedral,  a  poor  wooden 
church  in  a  ruinous  condition. 

He  had  resolved,  since  the  trustees  of  New  Orleans  and 


330  THE   kOMAX  CA'J'HOLICS.  [Chap.  xxi. 

their  tool,  the  Capuchin  Sedella,  continued  in  their  rebell- 
ion and  held  the  cathedral  against  him,  to  make  St.  Louis, 
in  the  upper  portion  of  his  diocese,  then  comprising  all  the 
territory  known  at  the  time  as  Louisiana,  the  center  of  his 
administration.  The  seminary  under  the  charge  of  the 
four  Lazarists  who  had  preceded  him  was  settled  at  the  Bar- 
rens, Perry  County,  Mo.  The  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart, 
under  the  superiorship  of  the  saintly  Mme.  Duchesne,  were 
established  at  St.  Charles,  and  soon  after  at  Florissant. 
When  the  Jesuits  came  to  the  West  from  Maryland  they 
established  themselves  also  in  Florissant.  A  church  and 
an  episcopal  residence,  both  costing  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars,  were  erected  in  St.  Louis. 

However,  lower  Louisiana  was  by  no  means  neglected. 
New  churches  were  built  in  the  old  parishes  and  the  num- 
ber of  priests  was  increased.  The  people  of  New  Orleans 
soon  began  to  realize  the  mistake  they  had  made  in  allow- 
ing an  unworthy  priest  and  a  few  irreligious  laymen  to 
drive  aWay  their  bishop,  with  the  result  of  raising  in  the 
upper  country  a  rival  to  the  old  French  capital.  Penance 
followed  upon  punishment,  and  the  strange  spectacle  was 
seen  of  the  Bishop  of  New  Orleans  invited  and  begged  to 
celebrate  Christmas  day  in  his  cathedral.  While  in  New 
Orleans  the  bishop  held  a  synod  to  consider  needs  and 
devise  means.  Much  had  already  been  done,  but  much 
more  remained  to  be  done.  Appeals  for  clergymen  were 
constantly  reaching  him  from  all  parts  of  his  immense 
diocese,  even  from  the  banks  of  the  Columbia  in  far-away 
Oregon,  where  lived  fifteen  hundred  Catholics  who  had 
never  seen  a  priest  in  their  W^estern  home.  Moreover, 
Florida,  since  its  cession  to  the  United  States  by  Spain 
(February,  1819),  had  been  added  to  his  charge  and  placed 
under  his  jurisdiction,  temporarily  at  least,  by  the  holy 
see.      Bishop  England,  of  Charleston,  was  in  nearer  com- 


kESWNATlOX  OF  BJSllOl'  DU  BOURG.  331 

inunication  with  eastern  Florida  than  was  the  Bishop  of 
New  Orleans.  In  consequence  the  latter  begged  the 
former  to  attend  to  the  administration  of  St.  Augustine 
and  its  neighborhood. 

Bishop  Du  Bourg,  conscious  of  his  inability  to  give 
proper  attention,  single-handed,  to  the  interests  of  his  vast 
diocese,  petitioned  Rome  for  relief.  Various  plans,  such 
as  the  creation  of  new  sees  in  the  Floridas  and  Louisiana 
and  the  erection  of  New  Orleans  into  an  archbishopric, 
were  in  turn  presented  to  and  rejected  by  the  holy  see ; 
and  it  was  finally  decided  to  give  Bishop  Du  Bourg  a 
coadjutor  in  the  person  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rosati,  one  of  the 
Lazarists  who  had  founded  the  seminary  of  the  Barrens. 
He  was  named  Bishop  of  Tenagra,  /;/  partibus  iiijidelhu/i, 
and  consecrated  March  25,  1824.  Bishop  Du  Bourg  re- 
mained in  New  Orleans  in  charge  of  low'er  Louisiana. 
Bishop  Rosati  returned  to  St.  Louis,  took  up  his  residence 
there,  and  assumed  charge  of  upper  Louisiana,  that  is  to 
say,  of  Missouri  and  Arkansas,  and  also  of  western  Illi- 
nois, which  really  belonged  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Bishop 
Flaget,  but  which  Bishop  Rosati  consented  to  administer 
at  the  request  of  the  overworked  Bishop  of  Bardstown. 

Bishop  Du  Bourg,  though  relieved,  at  his  request,  of 
most  of  his  cares,  became  discouraged,  and  offered  his 
resignation  to  the  holy  see  ;  it  was  accepted.  He  found 
Louisiana  in  a  most  destitute  condition ;  he  left  it  with 
twenty  parishes  well  provided  with  priests,  churches,  and 
schools.  It  was  not  the  state  of  his  health  that  compelled 
him  to  resign,  nor  overwork,  but  opposition;  as  he  himself 
declared,  "  It  was  evident  my  presence  would  be  more 
prejudicial  than  useful."  "  It  was  time,"  writes  one  of  his 
priests,  "  to  put  an  end  to  his  sufferings,  and  just,  above 
all,  that  in  the  decline  of  his  life  he  may  enjoy  a  little 
peace  and  repose.      The  prejudice  against  him  is  so  strong" 


332  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxi; 

in  this  city,  this  sewer  of  all  vices  and  refuge  of  all  that  is 
worst  on  earth,  that,  in  spite  of  all  his  sacrifices  and  all  his 
exalted  ability,  he  could  not  have  effected  any  good  here. 
The  very  name  of  Du  Bourg  has  an  irritating  sound  in  the 
ears  of  a  great  portion  of  this  new  Babylon."  No  such 
prejudice  existed  against  his  coadjutor,  and  Bishop  Du 
Bourg  felt  that  in  retiring  he  rendered  an  essential  service 
to  the  church.  He  bade  farewell  to  New^  Orleans,  which 
beheld  him  depart  without  the  slightest  sign  of  regret  or 
repentance.  He  was  made  Bishop  of  Montauban,  and  died 
Archbishop  of  Besangon  in  France. 

Before  Bishop  Du  Bourg  had  sent  in  his  resignation  a 
decree  issued  from  Rome,  restricting  the  diocese  of  New 
Orleans  to  Louisiana,  and  annexing  temporarily  to  New 
Orleans  the  administration  of  the  vicariate  apostolic  of 
Mississippi.  By  the  same  decree  (March  20,  1827)  St. 
Louis  was  erected  into  a  see,  with  upper  Louisiana — an 
indefinite  territory — as  a  diocese.  After  the  resignation 
of  Bishop  Du  Bourg,  Rosati,  now  Bishop  of  St.  Louis,  was 
appointed  Administrator  of  New  Orleans  until  an  incum- 
bent should  be  named  for  that  see.  Meanwhile  he  lived 
in  St.  Louis,  rivaling  his  brother  bishops  in  the  other  sec- 
tions of  the  republic  by  his  apostolic  zeal,  energetic  efforts 
for  progress,  and  his  wide  missionary  travels.  The  dio- 
cese of  St.  Louis  embraced  Missouri  with  the  territory  of 
Arkansas.  In  St.  Louis  the  church  begun  by  Bishop  Du 
Bourg  during  his  former  residence  there  was  still  unfin- 
ished, financial  troubles  having  driven  aw^ay  some  and  pre- 
vented others  from  meeting  their  subscriptions.  Caron- 
delet,  Florissant,  St.  Charles,  Ste.  Genevieve,  the  Barrens, 
and  New  Madrid  were  the  principal  points  where  Catholics 
were  to  be  found,  and  religious  institutions  were  established. 
The  Catholic  population  was  largely  of  French  origin,  with 
a  small  Spanish  sprinkling. 


BISHOP  ROSATI.  333 

In  western  Illinois,  the  temporary  administration  of 
which  Bishop  Rosati  had  assumed  at  the  request  of  Bishop 
Flaget,  Kaskaskia  had  one  hundred  and  fifty  families; 
Prairie  du  Rocher  had  one  hundred,  the  church  there  being 
under  the  care  of  Rev.  Donatien  Olivier,  now  seventy- 
five  years  old  and  almost  blind  ;  O'Hara's  Settlement  had 
a  growing  English-speaking  flock,  eager  for  a  priest ;  anil 
Cahokia,  an  old  French  village,  had  a  church  and  an  aged 
priest.  In  1824  Rev.  John  M.  Odin,  accompanied  by 
Rev.  John  Timon,  then  in  subdeacon's  orders,  set  out  on 
a  missionary  journey,  their  definitive  point  being  Arkansas 
Post,  where  the  Catholics  had  long  been  without  mass  or 
sacraments.  Near  Davidsonville  and  at  Little  Rock  they 
found  Catholics  who  had  never  seen  a  priest.  On  the 
Arkansas  River  was  a  cluster  of  sixteen  Catholic  families, 
who  reported  that  mass  had  twice  been  offered  there. 
Arkansas  Post  was  the  only  place  where  there  were  enough 
Catholics  to  maintain  a  clergyman.  Everywhere  the  mis- 
sionaries had  to  begin  by  teaching  grown-up  children  the 
elementary  doctrines,  practices,  and  prayers  of  religion. 
The  parents  had  endeavored  to  keep  up  the  faith,  and  had 
given  private  baptism  to  their  children.  The  celebration 
of  the  mass  was  for  the  children  a  strange  ceremony,  for 
the  parents  one  they  welcomed  back  with  joy. 

The  period  of  Bishop  Rosati's  administration  of  New 
Orleans  was  marked  by  a  new  condemnation  of  trusteeism 
by  Rome,  and  by  the  passing  away  of  the  unfortunate 
clergyman  who  for  years  had  been  the  bane  of  the  church 
in  lower  Louisiana.  The  trustees  of  St.  Louis'  Cathedral 
in  New  Orleans  endeavored  to  secure  the  passage  of  a  law- 
vesting  in  them  the  right  to  appoint  and  remove  priests. 
We  have  seen  that  a  similar  claim  made  at  Philadelphia 
had  been  condemned  by  Pope  Pius  VII.,  and  that  Bishop 
Conwell  had  been  reproved  for  even  indirectly  admitting 


334  ^^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxi. 

it.  Moreover,  the  New  Orleans  trustees  claimed  ownership 
of  the  cathedral,  as  representing  the  Catholics  of  the  city, 
though  they  had  not  bought  the  ground  or  erected  the 
church,  since  the  site  had  been  given  by  the  king  of  Spain, 
and  the  church  had  been  built  by  Seiior  Almonaster  under 
an  agreement  with  the  king.  Bishop  Rosati  laid  the  mat- 
ter before  Pope  Leo  XII.,  who  in  answer  issued  the  brief 
Quo  Lojtgiits,  confirming  the  letters  apostolic  of  Pope 
Pius  VII.  against  the  trustees  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  Phil- 
adelphia. The  fomenter  of  the  troubles  in  the  church  of 
New  Orleans,  the  Capuchin  Anthony  Sedella,  soon  after 
passed  away.  He  died  apparently  in  full  communion  with 
the  church,  but  his  funeral  was  turned  into  an  anti- Catholic 
demonstration,  and  the  city  lodges  of  Freemasons  accom- 
panied it  by  a  special  order  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  the 
State. 

The  bulls  appointing  the  Rev.  Michael  Portier  to  the 
newly  erected  vicariate  apostolic  of  Alabama  and  Florida 
found  that  clergyman  presiding  over  a  college  in  New 
Orleans  and  unwilling  to  accept  the  charge.  But  he  had 
to  yield  to  renewed  orders  from  Rome,  and  was  consecrated 
in  St.  Louis,  November  5,  1822.  In  Alabama  there  was 
the  old  French  settlement  of  Mobile,  with  a  resident  priest, 
a  church  much  in  need  of  repair,  and  about  ten  thousand 
Catholics.  There  were  also  a  few  scattered  Catholics  at 
Huntsville,  Florence,  and  Tuscumbia.  In  western  Florida 
there  was  the  old  Spanish  town  of  Pensacola,  with  a  resi- 
dent priest  and  a  small  congregation.  The  bishop  visited 
both  these  centers,  then  made  his  way  to  Tallahassee, 
where  he  found  but  a  few  CathoHcs,  and  thence  to  St. 
Augustine,  which  had  been  deprived  of  the  services  of  a 
priest  for  years.  Here  for  two  weeks  he  preached  a  mis- 
sion to  the  faithful.     One  hundred  and  twenty-five  persons 


CATHOucrry  ix  Florida.  335 

received  the  holy  eucharist,  and  sixty  children  were  bap- 
tized. In  the  old  Spanish  part  of  Florida,  along  the  coast, 
and  especially  in  St.  Augustine,  the  greater  number  of  the 
Catholics  were  Minorcans.     A  word  about  them. 

By  the  treaty  of  1 763  Florida  passed  from  Spain  to 
England.  The  former  Spanish  subjects,  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  change  was  to  be  of  brief  duration,  gave  no 
indication  of  retiring  from  their  homes.  But  the  harsh 
administration  of  the  English  officials  caused  them  soon  to 
change  their  mind,  and  they  emigrated  almost  in  a  body. 
In  violation  of  the  treaty  made  at  the  time  of  the  sur- 
render, the  property  of  the  Catholic  Church — churches, 
convents,  hospitals — was  seized  without  compensation  and 
turned  to  secular  uses.  All  trace  of  former  Catholicity 
was  swept  from  the  soil  of  Florida.  A  few  years  later,  in 
1768,  fourteen  hundred  Minorcans,  Italians  and  Greeks, 
were  imported  into  Florida  and  located  at  Mosquito  Inlet 
by  an  English  company  chartered  for  the  raising  and 
manufacturing  of  sugar  and  indigo.  There  a  church,  San 
Pedro  of  Mosquito,  was  erected  into  a  parish  by  the  Bishop 
of  Santiago,  under  whose  jurisdiction  the  province  contin- 
ued, and  was  served  by  two  priests  who  came  with  the 
colonists  to  minister  to  their  spiritual  wants.  The  treat- 
ment of  this  colony  by  the  English  company  was  cruel, 
nine  hundred  perishing  in  nine  years.  Goaded  to  desper- 
ation by  the  ill  treatment  of  their  English  employers,  they 
rose  in  resistance  (1777)  and  made  their  way — six  hundred 
of  them,  including  two  hundred  children  born  in  Florida 
— to  St.  Augustine.  The  governor,  Moultrie,  having  be- 
come convinced  of  the  justness  of  their  cause,  assigned  -to 
them  a  part  of  the  city  of  St.  Augustine.  None  of  the 
churches  or  religious  houses  of  Spanish  da}'S  were  given 
them,    some   being    in    ruins,    others    being   occupied    by 


336  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxi. 

troops ;  so  that  they  were  compelled  to  hold  services  in 
private  houses.  It  was  the  descendants  of  these  refugees 
who  formed  in  great  part  the  congregation  of  St.  Augus- 
tine in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century. 

On  his  return  to  Mobile,  Bishop  Portier  was  pained  to 
find  that  the  two  priests  of  Mobile  and  Pensacola  had  left 
their  posts  for  the  diocese  of  New  Orleans,  to  which  they 
originally  belonged.  He  was  now  without  a  priest  of  his 
own  in  his  vast  vicariate,  and  without  resources  of  any 
kind.      He  embarked  for  Europe  to  seek  the  aid  he  needed. 

Let  us  now  resume  the  history  of  the  progress  of  this 
period  (i  790-1829).  At  the  opening  of  the  First  Pro- 
vincial Council  of  Baltimore  (October  4,  1829)  the  hie- 
rarchy of  the  United  States  was  constituted  thus:  {a)  the 
province  of  Baltimore,  containing  the  sees  of  Baltimore, 
Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Bardstown,  Charleston, 
Cincinnati ;  {U)  outside  the  province  of  Baltimore  three 
dioceses  having  no  center  in  this  country,  but  depending 
directly  upon  the  Propaganda  in  Rome — New  Orleans, 
St.  Louis,  the  vicariate  of  Alabama  and  Florida.  It 
was  only  the  incumbents  and  the  coadjutors  of  the  sees 
within  the  province  of  Baltimore  that  were  the  regular,  the 
canonical  members  of  the  council.  The  incumbents  of  the 
outside  dioceses,  Bishops  Rosati  and  Portier — New  Orleans 
was  vacant — were  invited  to  take  part  in  the  general  con- 
sultations as  to  the  best  means  of  advancing  religion  in  the 
United  States ;  however,  before  the  council  was  concluded, 
Bishop  Portier  was  made  a  suffragan  of  Baltimore.  The 
collective  letter  of  the  fathers  of  the  council  to  Pius  VIII. 
sums  up  the  progress  and  the  condition  of  the  church  at 
the  time  ;  we  transcribe  it : 

"  Not  two  centuries  have  elapsed  since,  in  a  remote  and 
obscure  corner  of  Maryland,   a  little  band  of  Catholics, 


FIRST  PROMNCIAL  COUNCIL  OF  BALTIMORE.       337 

guided  by  a  few  missionaries,  exiles  from  their  nati\'e 
land,  flying  from  the  cruel  persecution  inflicted  on  them 
for  adhering  to  the .  faith  of  their  forefathers,  laid  the 
foundation  of  this  American  church.  It  is  scarcely  forty 
years  since  this  bod}^  of  the  faithful  in  the  United  States 
of  America  was  found  sufficient  to  demand,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  sovereign  pontiff,  the  erection  of  the  first  episcopal 
see  of  Baltimore.  Not  twenty  years  have  rolled  by  since 
a  decree  of  the  holy  pontiff,  Pius  VII.,  exalted  the  church 
of  Baltimore  to  the  dignity  and  rights  of  a  metropolitan ; 
and,  like  a  joyful  mother  of  children,  she  has  beheld  in 
recently  erected  suffragan  dioceses,  quickened  by  a  hea\^en- 
bestowed  fruitfulness,  an  offspring  in  new  churches  which 
she  has  borne  to  Christ.  We  see  so  many  blessings  be- 
stowed by  God  on  these  rising  churches,  such  increase 
given  to  this  vineyard,  that  those  who  planted  and  those 
who  watered,  and  those  who  harvested  and  tread  the 
overflowing  wine-press,  are  compelled  to  confess  and  ad- 
mire wholly  the  finger  of  God. 

"The  number  of  the  faithful  increases  daily;  churches 
not  unworthy  of  divine  worship  are  everywhere  erected  ; 
the  Word  of  God  is  preached  everj^where,  and  not  with- 
out fruit;  the  hatred  and  prejudice  spread  against  the 
church  and  faithful  vanish;  holy  religion,  once  despised 
and  held  in  contempt,  receives  honor  from  her  \'ery 
enemies ;  the  priests  of  Christ  are  venerated  even  by  those 
without ;  the  truth  and  divinity  of  our  faith  is  proclaimed 
and  vindicated  from  the  calumny  of  heresy  and  unbelief, 
not  only  in  churches  and  from  pulpits,  but  from  the  press 
in  widely  scattered  periodicals  and  books.  Six  ecclesias- 
tical seminaries,  the  hope  of  our  churches,  have  already 
been  established,  and  are  governed  in  hoi}-  discipline  by 
pious  and  learned  priests  ;  nine  colleges  under  ecclesiastical 
control  have  been  erected  in  different  States  to  train  boys 


^^S  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  x\i. 

and  young  men  in  piety,  arts,  and  higher  branches  of 
science ;  three  of  these  have  been  chartered  as  universities 
by  the  legislatures ;  thirty-three  monasteries  and  houses 
of  religious  women  of  difTerent  orders  and  congregations — 
Ursulines,  Visitandines,  Carmelites,  Sacred  Heart,  Sisters 
of  Charity,  Loretto,  etc. — are  everywhere  established  in 
our  dioceses,  whence  emanate  not  only  the  observance  of 
the  evangelical  counsels  and  the  exercise  of  all  other  vir- 
tues, but  the  good  order  of  Christ  in  the  pious  training 
of  innumerable  girls;  houses  of  religious  of  the  Order  of 
Preachers  and  the  Society  of  Jesus,  of  secular  priests  of 
the  Congregation  of  the  Mission  and  of  St.  Sulpice,  from 
which,  as  centers,  priests  are  sent  out  to  missions ;  many 
schools  where  the  poor  of  both  sexes  are  taught  gratui- 
tously ;  hospitals  carried  on  by  religious  women,  who  daily 
gi\-e  signs  of  heroic  charity,  to  the  great  benefit  of  souls 
and  of  religion.  These,  Most  Holy  Father,  are  the  signal 
benefits  which  God  has  bestowed  upon  us  in  a  few  years." 
Yes,  there  was  prosperity,  thanks  to  the  innate  life  and 
vigor  of  the  church  herself,  and  also  to  the  liberty  guaran- 
teed by  the  Constitution.  Since  the  declaration  and 
acquisition  of  independence  they  had  helped  to  secure, 
Catholics  had  remained  true  and  loyal  to  the  United  States 
and  its  institutions.  There  was  nothing  in  their  record  to 
justify  a  revival  of  the  colonial  spirit  of  opposition  and 
persecution.  Yet  that  evil  spirit  had  not  been  entirely  laid 
and  exorcised  in  the  land ;  it  remained  as  a  smoldering 
fire  ready  to  burst  forth  at  the  first  fanning  of  the  embers. 
Such  a  fanning  came  from  the  violent  anti-Catholic  litera- 
ture called  into  existence  in  England  by  the  movement  for- 
Catholic  emancipation.  A  religious  and  political  storm, 
which  was  finally  to  burst  upon  us  as  Know-nothingism, 
was  steadily  looming  up,  a  menace  to  the  friendliness  and 
peace  that  liad  heretofore  reigned  between  all  classes  in 


A   COMING  DA  ACER.  339 

the  United  States,  a  menace  to  the  inalienable  rights  of 
the  church  and  of  Catholics,  a  menace  to  liberty,  life,  and 
property.  We  shall  see,  as  we  approach  the  middle  of  the 
century,  how  our  hierarchy  was  forced  to  take  notice  of 
this  movement  and  counsel  their  flocks  to  calmness  and 
patience  in  the  presence  of  the  danger. 


Part  II.     The   Growth    of   the    Church    from 
THE   First  Provincial  Council  of  Balti- 
more to  the  First  Plenary  Council 
(1829-52.) 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

BALTIMORE    AND    ITS    SUFFRAGANS  (1829-52). 

The  year  1829  is  generally  accepted  as  a  turning-point 
in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  The  Presidency  of 
Andrew  Jackson  was  the  culmination  of  a  process  of 
material  growth  and  institutional  expansion.  The  popu- 
lation of  the  country  had  increased  from  about  four  mill- 
ions to  almost  thirteen  millions  within  the  forty  years  that 
had  elapsed  since  the  formation  of  the  federal  government 
in  1 789.  The  nation  had  succeeded  in  planting  new 
homes  and  creating  new  States  in  the  territory  which  lay 
between  the  Eastern  mountains  and  the  Mississippi.  A 
new  nation  had  been  born  and  nurtured  in  the  West ;  the 
old  Eastern  colonies  could  no  longer  expect  to  dictate  the 
politics  of  the  republic.  In  the  increase  of  the  population 
since  i  789  immigration  had  not  been  a  prominent  factor ; 
but  after  1829  the  incoming  of  Europeans  became  a 
marked  characteristic  of  our  growth,  to  an  extent  so  vast 
as  to  excite  the  jealousy  of  the  descendants  of  the  former 
colonists  and  call  into  existence  the  semi-political,  semi- 

340 


a KO 11-77/  OF  THE   WEST.  34 1 

religious  movement  known  in  our  history  as  Native  Amer- 
icanism, which  degenerated  by  a  natural  process  into 
Know-nothingism.  Of  this  strange  movement,  which  was 
not  American,  but  originated  with  disappointed  and  tur- 
bulent men  thrown  on  our  shores  by  the  European 
revolutions  of  1848-50,  much  will  be  said  in  the  following 
pages. 

Since  181 1  the  steamboat,  after  1830  the  railroad,  facil- 
itated the  distribution  of  immigrants  throughout  the  West, 
and  by  easier  transportation  assured  the  predominance  of 
the  great  agricultural  States  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  It 
was  precisely  in  the  same  direction  that  the  church  found 
her  greatest  growth  and  progress.  Within  the  period  of 
little  more  than  nine  years,  from  18 12  to  1821,  seven 
States  were  admitted  to  the  Union.  The  aggregate  pop- 
ulation of  the  States  which  had  been  created  in  the  West 
was  almost  half  as  great  as  the  aggregate  population  of 
the  States  which  had  formed  the  Union  in  i  789.  It  was 
not  a  period  of  great  civic  agglomerations,  but  of  rural 
communities.  Not  many  manufactures  had  been  devel- 
oped ;  the  people  were  absorbed  in  conquering  nature — 
felling  the  forests,  plowing  the  prairies,  and  erecting 
homes.  Everything  was  conditioned  by  the  newness  of 
the  country — literature,  schools,  and  social  manners.  The 
general  characteristics  of  the  national  life  will  be  found 
also  in  the  Catholic  life  of  the  period. 

One  more  suffragan  see  was  erected  since  the  holding 
of  the  First  Provincial  Council,  that  of  Detroit.  It  was 
represented  by  its  bishop,  the  Rt.  Rev.  Frederic  Rese,  in 
the  Second  Provincial  Council,  held  in  October,  1833. 
This  Second  Provincial  Council  asked  the  sovereign  pontifT 
to  erect  a  see  at  Vincennes,  the  diocese  to  embrace  Indiana 
and  eastern   Illinois,    and   to  reunite   canonically  Virginia 


342  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

to  the  diocese  of  Baltimore  by  suppressing  the  see  of 
Richmond.  A  plan  for  nominating  candidates  to  vacant  or 
new  sees  was  proposed  to  the  sovereign  pontiff.  When  the 
acts  of  the  council  reached  Rome,  it  was  not  deemed  best 
to  suppress  the  see  of  Richmond,  but  the  other  sugges- 
tions of  the  council  were  approved.  Pope  Gregory  XVI., 
by  the  bull  Bciiedictiis  Dejts  (June  17,  1834),  fixed  more 
exactly,  the  limits  of  the  several  existing  dioceses  and 
the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  prescribed  the 
mode  to  be  observed  in  nominating  to  vacant  sees,  which 
is  not  described  here  because  it  is  no  longer  in  use,  hav- 
ing been  superseded  by  another  system  which  will  be 
noticed  in  its  place. 

The  pastoral  letter  issued  by  the  council  alluded  to  the 
calumnies  current  against  Catholics  in  the  press  of  the 
time:  "We  advise  you  to  heed  them  not,  but  to  continue, 
whilst  3^ou  serve  your  God  with  fidelity,  to  discharge 
honestl}',  faithfully,  and  with  affectionate  attachment  your 
duties  to  the  government  under  which  you  live,  so  that  we 
may,  in  common  with  our  fellow-citizens,  sustain  that  edi- 
fice of  rational  liberty  in  which  we  find  such  excellent  pro- 
tection. We  notice  with  regret  a  spirit  exhibited  by  some 
of  the  conductors  of  the  press  engaged  in  the  interests  of 
those  brethren  separated  from  our  communion,  which  has 
within  a  few  years  become  more  unkind  and  unjust  in  our 
regard.  Not  only  do  they  assail  us  and  our  institutions  in 
a  style  of  vituperation  and  offense,  misrepresent  our  tenets, 
vilify  our  practices,  repeat  the  hundred-times-refuted  cal- 
umnies of  the  days  of  angry  and  bitter  contention  in  other 
lands,  but  they  have  even  denounced  you  and  us  as 
enemies  to  the  liberties  of  the  republic,  and  have  openly 
proclaimed  the  fancied  necessity  of  obstructing  our  prog- 
ress, and  of  using  their  best  efforts  to  extirpate  our  relig- 
ion.     It  is  neither  our  principle  nor  our  practice  to  render 


PROVINCIAL  COUNCILS.  343 

evil  for  evil,  nor  railing  for  railing,  and  we  exhort  you 
rather  to  the  contrary,  to  render  blessing;  'for  unto  this 
are  you  called,  that  \'ou  b}-  inheritance  may  obtain  a 
blessing.'  " 

In  view  of  his  declining  health,  Archbishop  Whitfield 
asked  that  a  coadjutor  be  given  him  in  the  person  of  Rev. 
Samuel  Eccleston,  president  of  St.  Mar}''s  College.  The 
holy  see  acceded  to  the  request,  and  the  consecration  of 
the  candidate  took  place  September  14,  1834.  About  a 
month  later  (October  19th)  Archbishop  Whitfield  passed 
to  his  eternal  reward.  In  1837  Archbishop  Eccleston 
convened  and  presided  over  the  Third  Provincial  Council 
of  Bakimore.  It  was  attended  by  Bishops  Rosati  of  St. 
Louis,  Fenwick  of  Boston,  Kenrick,  Coadjutor  of  Philadel- 
phia, Purcell  of  Cincinnati,  Chabrat,  Coadjutor  of  Bards- 
town,  Clanc}-,  Coadjutor  of  Charleston,  Brute,  Bishop  of 
Vincennes,  and  Blanc,  Bishop  of  New  Orleans.  Bisliop 
Dubois,  of  New  York,  was  unavoidably  absent.  Pope 
Gregory  XVI.  acceded  to  the  rec^uests  made  by  this  coun- 
cil for  the  erection  of  the  sees  of  Pittsburg,  Nashville,  and 
Dubuque. 

The  Fourth  Pro\'incial  Council  of  Baltimore  assembled 
on  the  1 6th  of  May,  1840,  under  the  Most  Rev.  Samuel 
Eccleston,  and  was  attended  by  Bishops  Flaget  of  Bards- 
town,  Rosati  of  St.  Louis,  Fenwick  of  Boston,  Portier  of 
Mobile,  Kenrick  of  Philadelphia,  Purcell  of  Cincimiati. 
Blanc  of  New  Orleans,  Loras  of  Dubuque,  Miles  of  Nash- 
ville, De  la  Hailandiere  of  Vincennes,  and  also  by  Mgr. 
Charles  Augustus  Joseph  de  Forbin-Janson,  Bishop  of 
Nancy  and  Toul,  Primate  of  Lorraine,  who  happened  to 
be  in  America  at  the  time  and  was  invited  to  the  council. 
Of  the  infamous  anti-Catholic  literature  that  was  being 
poured  on  the  country  the  pastoral  letter  issued  by  this 
council  said :  "  The  miserable  libels  have  had  their  day ; 


344  ^-^^^   ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

their  compilers  and  the  unfortunate  and  degraded  instru- 
ments of  their  guilt,  if  not  already  fallen  to  their  proper 
level,  are  fast  sinking  in  the  estimation  of  those  whom  they 
sought  to  delude."  But  though  dishonest  attacks  were 
still  made  on  Catholics  and  their  faith,  they  were  urged  to 
bear  the  persecution  patiently,  to  pray  for  their  enemies, 
and  to  avoid  all  temptation  to  retaliate.  The  council  re- 
quested the  holy  see  to  restore  autonomy  to  the  diocese 
of  Richmond,  and  recommended  for  that  see  the  Rev. 
Richard  Vincent  Whelan ;  advised  the  erection  of  a  see  at 
Natchez,  and  proposed  for  it  Rev.  John  J.  Chanche ;  and 
proposed  Rev.  John  M.  Odin  as  Coadjutor  and  Adminis- 
trator of  the  diocese  of  Detroit,  left  vacant  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Bishop  Rese. 

The  Fifth  Provincial  Council  was  held  in  the  Cathedral 
of  Baltimore,  May,  1843.  The  fathers  of  the  council  solic- 
ited from  the  sovereign  pontiff  the  erection  of  sees  at 
Hartford,  Chicago,  Little  Rock,  Milwaukee,  and  Oregon. 
They  also  proposed  candidates  for  the  see  of  Charleston 
and  coadjutors  for  Boston  and  New  York.  The  flood  of 
Native  Americanism  was  steadily  mounting,  and  though  it 
had  not  yet  broken  out  into  overt  acts  of  persecution,  still 
the  Protestant  public  was  being  educated  by  a  campaign 
of  calumnies.  The  council  alludes  to  this  dangerous  state 
of  things  in  its  collective  letter:  "To  you  we  trust  for 
the  practical  refutation  of  all  those  atrocious  calumnies 
which  deluded  men,  severallv  or  in  odious  combinations, 
constantly  circulate  by  every  possible  means  against  our 
holy  religion.  Your  strict  integrity  in  the  daily  concerns 
of  life,  your  fidelity  in  the  fulfillment  of  all  engagements, 
your  peaceful  demeanor,  your  obedience  to  the  laws,  your 
respect  for  the  public  functionaries,  your  Unaffected  ex- 
ercise of  charit}-  in  thic  many  occasions  which  the  miseries 
and  sufferings  of    our  fellow-men  present — in   fine,   your 


INCREASE  OE  BISHOPRICS.  345 

sincere  virtue — will  confound  those  vain  men  whose  inge- 
nuity and  industry  are  exerted  to  cast  suspicion  on  our 
principles  and  evoke  against  us  all  the  worst  passions  of 
human  nature." 

Each  Provincial  Council  added  to  the  number  of  dioceses 
and  bishops,  as  the  following  list  of  attendants  on  the 
Sixth  Provincial  Council  shows:  Archbishop  Eccleston, 
Bishops  Portier  of  Mobile,  Purcell  of  Cincinnati,  Chabrat, 
Coadjutor  of  Louisville,  Blanc  of  New  Orleans,  Loras  of 
Dubuque,  Hughes  of  New  York,  Miles  of  Nashville,  De 
la  Hailandiere  of  Vincennes,  Chanche  of  Natchez,  Whelan 
of  Richmond,  Kenrick  of  St.  Louis,  Odin,  Vicar  Apostolic 
of  Texas,  O'Connor  of  Pittsburg,  Byrne  of  Little  Rock, 
Quarter  of  Chicago,  McCloskey,  Coadjutor  of  New  York, 
Tyler  of  Hartford,  Re}'nolds  of  Charleston,  Kenrick  of 
Philadelphia,  Henni  of  Milwaukee,  and  Fitzpatrick,  Coad- 
jutor of  Boston.  The  progress  of  the  church  was  mainly 
in  the  North  Atlantic  States,  Maryland,  and  the  West. 
The  State  of  New  York,  with  part  of  New  Jersey,  had 
hitherto  been  one  diocese,  and  the  State  of  Ohio  also  one 
diocese.  The  former,  at  the  commencement  of  1846,  con- 
tained a  Catholic  population  of  two  hundred  thousand, 
with  one  hundred  and  nine  priests  and  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  churches.  Bishop  Hughes,  believing  that  the 
good  of  religion  demanded  the  erection  of  new  sees  in  his 
district,  solicited  in  this  council  the  establishment  of  bish- 
oprics at  Albany  and  Buffalo.  With  the  same  view,  Bishop 
Purcell,  who  had  in  his  diocese  sixty  priests  and  seventy 
churches,  with  sixtj^-five  thousand  Catholics,  solicited  the 
erection  of  a  see  in  Cleveland.  These  proposals  were 
adopted  by  the  fathers  of  the  council  and  laid  before  the 
sovereign  pontiff  for  his  approval. 

Up  to  the  year  1846  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  was 
the  only  metropolitan  in  the   United  States;  but  in  that 


346  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

year  a  rival  archiepiscopal  see  arose  in  the  farther  North- 
west, and  the  erection  of  this  second  metropohs  entailed 
the  creation  of  a  third  one.  The  diocese  of  St.  Louis 
had  no  fixed  limits  to  the  west ;  it  was  regarded  as  extend- 
ing to  the  Pacific  coast,  and,  in  fact,  sent  missionaries 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  beyond.  England,  how- 
ever, claimed  the  territory  on  the  Pacific  north  of 
California.  The  holy  see,  apparently  unaware  of  the 
ultimately  recognized  claims  of  the  United  States, 
treated  Oregon  as  British  territory,  and  on  the  ist 
of  December,  1843,  erected  there  a  vicariate  apostolic, 
connecting  it  virtually  with  the  hierarchy  of  Canada. 
In  July,  1846,  Oregon  City  was  made  an  archiepis- 
copal see,  and  suffragan  sees  were  erected  at  Walla 
Walla  and  Vancouver  Island,  while  other  neighboring  dis- 
tricts were  laid  off  for  future  dioceses.  The  Bishop  of 
St.  Louis  thus  beheld  a  whole  ecclesiastical  province 
created  in  a  region  that  he  had  always  considered  as  being 
within  his  own  diocese.  When  the  authorities  in  Rome 
came  to  see  their  mistake  and  recognized  that  Oregon 
was  United  States  territory  and  therefore  within  the  juris- 
diction of  St.  Louis,  this  latter  was  made  a  metropolitan 
see  by  Pius  IX.  (October,  1847),  with  Dubuque,  Nashville, 
Chicago,  and  Milwaukee  as  suffragans. 

This  made  three  ecclesiastical  provinces  in  the  United 
States.  There  was  a  general  wish  that  the  archbishops 
and  bishops  of  the  three  provinces  should  meet  in  a  coun- 
cil embracing  and  representing  the  whole  country.  To 
carry  out  this  view,  Archbishop  Eccleston  issued  (Sep- 
tember 23,  1848)  letters  to  the  Most  Rev.  Archbishops 
and  Rt.  Rev.  Bishops,  convoking  a  Plenary  Council.  The 
original  plan  was  not  carried  out,  however,  as  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Oregon  City  and  his  suffragans  represented  that 
on  account  of  the  great  distance  they  could  not  very  well 


NEW  PKOVIXCES.  347 

attend.  The  council  held  in  May,  1849,  was  accordingly 
styled  the  Seventh  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore,  though 
among  its  members  were  the  two  Archbishops  of  Bahifnore 
and  St.  Louis.  It  was  therefore  improperly  called  a  Pro- 
vincial Council,  and  yet  was  not  a  Plenary  Council,  since 
the  province  of  Oregon  was  not  represented.  It  resolved 
to  solicit  the  holy  see  to  make  the  following  metropolitan 
sees:  New  Orleans,  with  Mobile,  Natchez,  Little  Rock, 
and  Galveston  as  sufTragans ;  Cincinnati,  with  Louisville, 
Detroit,  Vincennes,  and  Cleveland  as  sufTragans  ;  and  New 
York,  with  Boston,  Hartford,  Albany,  and  Buffalo  as  suf- 
fragans. The  erection  of  more  dioceses  was  solicited,  viz., 
of  Savannah  and  Wheeling,  to  be  included  in  the  province 
of  Baltimore  ;  and  of  St.  Paul  and  the  vicariates  of  New 
Mexico  and  the  Indian  Territory,  to  be  included  in  the 
province  of  St.  Louis. 

The  holy  see  acceded  to  the  requests  of  the  council. 
The  ecclesiastical  province  of  Baltimore,  which  heretofore 
had  contained  all  the  dioceses  of  the  country,  or,  to  be 
more  exact,  all  the  dioceses  east  of  the  Mississippi,  was 
thus  narrowed  down  to  the  dioceses  of  Baltimore,  Phila- 
delphia, Pittsburg,  Richmond,  Wheeling,  Charleston,  and 
Savannah.  Baltimore,  at  first  the  original  diocese,  then 
the  original  archbishopric,  had  gradually  branched  out 
into  other  dioceses  and  provinces.  We  shall  see  that  in 
the  course  of  time  these  new  provinces  were  in  turn  sub- 
divided and  brought  forth  other  provinces.  It  was  b\' 
such  an  evolution  that  the  present  administrative  condition 
of  the  church  in  the  United  States  was  reached,  viz.,  four- 
teen ecclesiastical  provinces  or  archbishoprics,  containing 
seventy-one  suffragan  dioceses,  with  the  prefecture  apos- 
tolic of  Alaska. 

Archbishop  Eccleston  died  in  May,  1851;  in  the  fol- 
lowing August   the    Rt.    Rev.    Francis    Patrick    Kenrick, 


348  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  Jcxii. 

Bishop  of  Philadelpliia,  was  transferred  to  the  see  of  Bal- 
timore and  was  named  by  brief  (August  19,  185  1)  apostoHc 
delegate,  with  power  to  convoke  and  preside  over  a  Plenary 
Council  which  was  to  convene  in  May,  1852.  Though  an 
archbishop  may  without  special  authorization  convoke  to 
a  Provincial  Council  his  own  suffragans,  he  needs  authori- 
zation from  the  holy  see  to  convoke  to  a  Plenary  Council 
other  archbishops  and  their  suffragans.  The  era  of  Plenary 
Councils  begins. 

Richmond  had  been  erected  into  a  diocese  in  1820  with- 
out the  knowledge  or  consent  of  the  American  hierarchy, 
as  we  have  already  explained.  So  little  was  the  new  dio- 
cese prepared  for  the  maintenance  of  a  bishop  that  the 
first  incumbent  was  unable  to  find  support,  and  was  trans- 
ferred in  1822  to  a  diocese  in  Ireland,  the  country  of  his 
birth  and  of  his  priestly  career.  Since  that  time  Richmond 
had  been  annexed  to  Baltimore,  and  recovered  its  autonomy 
only  in  1 84 1,  when  some  hope  w'as  given  that  it  might 
be  able  to  maintain  a  bishop.  The  candidate  chosen  for 
the  restored  see  was  Richard  Vincent  Whelan,  a  native  of 
Baltimore  and  a  zealous  missionary  of  that  diocese.  The 
Catholic  population  of  Virginia  did  not  exceed  six  ihou- 
.sand,  under  the  care  of  five  clergymen. 

Wheeling,  in  the  western  part  of  the  State,  was  giving 
promise  of  a  quicker  and  larger  growth  than  Richmond. 
Climate,  soil,  a  great  natural  highway,  the  Ohio,  and  above 
all  the  comparative  absence  of  slave  labor,  invited  emi- 
gration. On  the  representations  of  Bishop  Whelan  the 
Seventh  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  requested  the 
holy  see  to  form  Western  Virginia  into  a  new  diocese,  with 
Wheeling  as  the  episcopal  see.  So  it  was  done  in  July, 
1850,  and  Bishop  Whelan  was  transferred  from  Richmond 
to  Wheeling.     He  was  succeeded  in  Richmond  (November 


LAST  YEARS  OF  BISHOP  EXOLAXD.  349 

10,  1850)  by  the  Rev.  Jolin  McGill,  a  native  of  Philadel- 
phia and  a  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Bardstown. 

The  increase  in  Catholic  population  and  the  progress  of 
the  church  had  never  been  so  marked  in  the  Southern  as 
in  the  Northern  and  Western  States.  Many  causes  might 
be  assigned  for  this  fact.  Let  it  suffice  to  name  one. 
Emigration  did  not  flow  in  the  direction  of  the  South, 
mainly  because  of  slavery.  Charleston  was  not,  therefore, 
a  fit  field  for  a  man  of  the  temperament  and  gifts  of  Bishop 
England.  His  ideas  were  large,  his  projects  vast,  his 
activity  relentless,  but  his  environment  cramped  him.  No 
American  bishop  of  his  day  journeyed  more  frequently  to 
Rome,  and  none  was  better  known  there  and  exercised 
more  influence. 

However,  a  wider  field  than  his  own  slowly  progressing 
diocese  was  opened  to  the  boundless  energy  of  the  "  steam- 
bishop,"  as  he  was  called  in  Rome.  The  holy  see  ap- 
pointed him  apostolic  delegate  to  visit  Hayti  and  arrange 
with  the  government  of  that  island  for  a  reorganization 
of  the  church  which  would  re\'ive  religion  and  morality. 
Bishop  England  sailed  (December  18,  1833)  for  Hayti, 
where  an  archbishop  had  once  presided  with  metropolitan 
jurisdiction  over  the  West  Indies  and  our  southern  coast. 
England  was  requested  to  report  on  its  religious  condition 
and  to  gi\e  his  advice  as  to  the  best  policy  to  be  pursued. 
He  found  there  about  seventy  priests,  governed  by  vicars 
appointed  by  the  last  archbishop.  After  visiting  Gua- 
dalupe and  St.  Thomas  he  returned  to  his  diocese,  and  in 
April,  1*834,  set  out  for  Rome  to  give  an  account  of  liis 
Haytian  mission.  The  sovereign  pontiff  was  so  well  satis- 
fied with  the  report  that  he  reappointed  Bishop  England 
apostolic  delegate,  with  more  ample  powers  to  make 
definite  arrangements  between  the  holy  see  and  the  Presj- 


:)D 


O  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 


dent  of  Hayti  for  the  proper  reorganization  of  the  church. 
As  this  would  entail  a  long  absence  from  his  diocese,  the 
bishop  solicited  the  appointment  of  a  coadjutor.  Among 
the  names  proposed  by  him  was  that  of  Dr.  Cullen,  then 
superior  of  the  Irish  College.  Failing  to  obtain  the  future 
Cardinal  of  Dublin,  he  proposed  Rev.  William  Clancy,  a 
native  of  Cork  and  professor  of  theology  in  Carlow  Col- 
lege, who  was  accordingly  appointed.  This  appointment 
was  a  sad  mistake.  Bishop  Clancy  was  a  complete  stranger 
to  the  United  States  and  never  became  American  either 
in  thought  or  sympathy.  His  temper  was  difficult,  and 
he  saw  in  our  institutions  only  matter  for  censure.  In  less 
than  a  year  he  solicited  his  transfer  to  another  field  of 
labor. 

The  end  of  Bishop  England's  career  was  worthy  of  his 
long  and  active  life.  In  1840,  on  a  homeward  journey 
from  Europe,  he  contracted  ship-fever  while  attending 
to  the  fever- stricken  steerage  passengers,  and  reached 
Charleston  in  a  state  of  great  prostration.  His  stirring 
life  came  to  an  end  April  11,  1842. 

So  passed  away  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  in  the 
history  of  the  church  in  America.  Thoroughly  devoted 
to  his  duties,  he  never  spared  himself;  he  was  constantly 
traveling  through  his  diocese  or  abroad  for  its  good.  His 
general  learning  was  great,  he  was  fond  of  literary  and 
scientific  studies,  and  his  mind  retained  and  classified  all 
it  acquired.  With  little  leisure  at  his  command,  he  was  a 
prolific  writer,  able  and  cogent  in  controversy  ;  an  eloquent 
speaker,  ready  to  address  any  audience — the  Congress  at 
Washington,  a  learned  society,  the  humblest  of  his  own 
flock,  or  a  congregation  of  non- Catholics — with  such  a 
flowing  tide  of  eloquence,  such  a  rich  fund  of  illustration, 
that  all  minds  and  hearts  were  swaj^ed.  He  was  prudent 
and  practical,  and  in  the  councils  of  the  church  here  and 


CHA  RLES  TOX  AXD  SA  VAXXA II.  ^  5  I 

at  Rome  acquired  an  influence  which  could  not  be  accorded 
to  one  not  really  great.  His  works,  collected  and  pub- 
lished by  his  successor,  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Reynolds,  remain 
one  of  the  great  treasures  of  our  literature. 

After  his  death  the  diocese  of  Charleston  passed  into 
the  hands  of  an  administrator,  the  Very  Rev.  R.  S.  Baker, 
until  the  consecration  of  Bishop  England's  successor,  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Ignatius  Aloysius  Reynolds  (March  19,  1844). 
The  three  States  contained  in  the  diocese  of  Charleston  at 
the  time  of  his  consecration  had  a  population  of  two  mill- 
ion, out  of  which  twelve  thousand  were  Catholics;  "but 
few  wealthy,"  he  states,  "  and  of  those  few  some  are  only 
nominal  members  of  the  church."  The  diocese  was  bur- 
dened with  a  debt,  small  in  itself  and  according  to  our 
present  views,  but  heavy  for  such  a  small  population  and 
the  circumstances  of  those  times.  In  1845  Bishop  Rey- 
nolds went  to  Europe  to  seek  relief,  but  met  with  very 
little  encouragement  or  success.  The  financial  forces  of 
his  clergy  and  people  were  taxed  to  the  utmost  to  sustain 
the  seminary  and  build  the  cathedral.  Not  for  long,  how- 
ever, could  he  carry  the  burden  of  the  seminary;  it  ceased 
to  exist  in  1851,  with  a  glorious  record,  nevertheless,  for 
it  had  furnished  many  priests  to  the  church  since  its  estab- 
lishment by  Bishop  England. 

Notwithstanding  the  small  number  of  Catholics  in  the 
southern  section  of  the  country,  the  Seventh  Council  of 
Baltimore  judged  it  expedient  to  ask  the  erection  of  a  see 
in  Savannah,  with  jurisdiction  over  Georgia  and  Florida 
east  of  the  Appalachicola  River.  The  diocese  of  Charles- 
ton was  in  consequence  left  with  the  two  Carolinas  and  a 
Catholic  population  of  about  eight  thousand.  The  can- 
didate for  the  new  diocese  was  the  Rev.  F.  X.  Gartland, 
born  in  Dublin,  but  brought  up  from  childhood  in  the 
United    States.       He    was    consecrated    in    Philadelphia, 


352  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

November  lO,  1850.  The  new  diocese  contained  small 
chapels  at  Savannah,  Augusta,  Locust  Grove,  Washing- 
ton, Mason,  Atlanta,  Columbus,  and  St.  Mary's  in  the 
State  of  Georgia;  and  at  St.  Augustine,  Key  West,  and 
Tallahassee  in  Florida.  Bishop  Gartland  attended  the 
First  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore,  but  did  not  survive 
long;  he  died,  a  victim  to  yellow  fever,   September  20, 

1854. 

The  most  important  in  size,  numbers,  and  wealth  of  the 
suffragan  dioceses  of  Baltimore  was  Philadelphia.  The 
trustee  schism  had  given  it  a  sad  prominence  in  the  pre- 
ceding period  (1808-29).  A  violent  and  disastrous  out- 
break of  Native  Americanism  gave  it  a  no  less  sad  prom- 
inence in  the  present  period  (1829-52).  The  Very  Rev. 
W^illiam  Mathews  did  not  remain  long  burdened  with  the 
administration  of  the  diocese  of  Philadelphia;  for  on  June 
6,  1830,  the  Rev.  Francis  Patrick  Kenrick,  named  by  the 
holy  see  coadjutor  to  the  Bishop  of  Philadelphia  and 
administrator  of  that  diocese,  was  consecrated  with  the 
title  of  Bishop  of  Arath,  i)i  partibus  i)ifidcliuiii.  He  at 
once  assumed  the  administration  of  the  tormented  diocese, 
and  struck  at  the  center  of  all  the  evils  that  had  afflicted 
it  in  the  past,  the  board  of  trustees  of  his  cathedral,  St. 
Mary's  Church.  After  maturely  considering  the  state  of 
affairs,  he  resolved  to  assume  the  pastoral  charge  of  St. 
Mary's,  and  notified  the  trustees  of  that  church  "  that  be- 
ing duly  and  exclusively  invested  by  the  apostolic  see  with 
episcopal  jurisdiction  for  the  government  of  the  diocese  of 
Philadelphia,  he  should  himself  act  as  chief  pastor  of  the 
Church  of  St.  Mary's,"  and  that  he  appointed  Rev.  Jere- 
miah Keily  as  his  assistant.  The  trustees  asked  him  to  re- 
consider his  resolution,  threatening  to  maintain  against  him 
the  rights  of  the  congregation  as  they  understood  them. 


END  OF  7-Ki'STf.EIS.]f  /X  rillLADELPIIIA.  353 

Thereupon   Bishop   Kenrick   addressed   a  letter  to  the 
pew-holders  (April  12,  1831),  announcing  that  it  would  be 
his  duty,  in  compliance  with  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of 
Baltimore,  to  interdict  the  church,  "  unless  all  opposition 
be   forthwith    withdrawn,   and   the   Catholic   principles   of 
church  government  be  unequivocally  admitted."     An  eva- 
sive answer  came  from  them,  and  Bishop  Kenrick  ordered 
the  cessation  of  all  sacred  functions  in  St.  Mary's  Church 
and  its  burial-ground  after  twelve  o'clock  of  April   16th, 
unless   the   trustees  signed  a  distinct  disclaimer  of  their 
pretensions.      This  they  exphcitly  declined  to  do,  and  the 
church    was    formally    interdicted.      "  A    small    and    con- 
temptible   faction,"    Bishop    Kenrick   wrote   in   a  pastoral 
letter,  "  by  intrigues  and  misrepresentations  has  succeeded 
in  resisting  my  pastoral  rights,  and  has  forced  me  to  have 
recourse  to  a  measure  of  severity  to  which  no  bishop  more 
than  I  can  be  averse.    The  gates  of  St.  Mary's  open  every 
Sunday  morning  to  receive  a  few  murmurers,  who  amidst 
the  tombs  utter  their  plaints,  because  the  consolations  of 
relisfion  have  been  withdrawn  from  those  who  in  defiance 
of  its  authority   sought   to  establish   a  tribunal   of   eight 
laymen  to  approve  or  reject  at  pleasure  episcopal  appoint- 
ments.     This  just    measure,   which   was  imperiously   de- 
manded, has  humbled  and  mortified  the  party,  and  grati- 
fied the  great   body   of  Philadelphia  Catholics,   who   are 
sincerely  attached  to  the  doctrine  and  government  of  the 
church.     There    has    hitherto    been    no    excitement,    the 
Catholics  worshiping  peaceably   in   the   other  churches." 
The   trustees,  failing  to  entrap  Bishop  Conwell,  living  in 
retirement  in  the  city,  whom  they  sought  to  use  as  a  tool 
against  the  coadjutor  and  administrator,  finally  submitted. 
Then   Bishop   Kenrick  reopened   St.  Mary's   Church,  and 
thus  Philadelphia's  Jong  period  of  schism  and  rebellion 
came  to  an  end. 


354  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

Having  thus  overpowered  the  one  great  enemy  to  the 
church's  progress,  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  clergy, 
which  naturally  enough  had  been  neglected  during  the 
struggles  of  trusteeism.  He  convoked  a  synod  for  May 
13,  1832,  which  was  preceded  by  a  spiritual  retreat. 
Thirty  priests  attended ;  nine  were  absent  from  age,  ill 
health,  or  other  \alid  excuses.  Wise  statutes  were  enacted 
.securing  ecclesiastical  discipline  ;  but  the  bishop  knew  that 
the  one  great  means  to  such  a  desirable  end  was  the  train- 
ing of  his  own  priests  in  a  diocesan  seminary.  This  became 
the  main  object  of  his  thoughts  and  labors.  He  recom- 
mended the  project  to  his  people,  he  sought  aid  for  it 
abroad.  In  thanking  the  Leopoldine  Association  for  its 
generosity  in  aiding  the  seminary.  Bishop  Kenrick  esti- 
mated the  Catholic  population  of  his  diocese  at  one  hun- 
dred thousand,  one  fourth  of  them  being  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia.  He  had  only  thirty-eight  priests — twenty- 
nine  diocesan,  the  others  being  Jesuits,  Augustinians,  and 
Franciscans — to  attend  to  fifty  churches  and  many  stations. 
Several  of  the  priests  were  yielding  to  the  influence  of  age 
and  infirmities,  so  that  it  was  vitally  important  to  train 
young  Levites  to  lighten  their  labors  and  in  time  succeed 
them.  He  was  able  to  realize  his  wish  in  1835,  when  the 
seminary  was  opened  in  his  own  residence  and  directed  by 
himself. 

The  reader,  however,  must  not  imagine  that  all  the 
energies  and  time  of  the  bishop  were  given  to  the  city  of 
Philadelphia  and  the  internal  administration  of  his  diocese. 
He  devoted  not  less  than  three  months  of  every  year  to 
visiting  even  the  remotest  parts  of  his  charge.  These 
visitations  proved  to  him  that  the  diocese  was  far  too  ex- 
tensive for  one  bishop  conscientiously  to  fulfill  all  the 
duties  of  supervision  and  detail.  He  explained  to  the 
Congregation    de   Propaganda   Fide    the    immense    labor 


rHiLAinj.riiiA  and  pittsbukg.  355 

required,  and  earnestly  urged  the  erection  of  a  see  at  Pitts- 
burg, a  city  with  eight  thousand  CathoHcs  and  two 
churches.  The  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  yielded 
to  the  views  of  Bishop  Kenrick;  but,  when  the  matter  was 
laid  before  the  Pope,  canonical  objections  raised  by  Bishop 
England  prevailed  against  the  advice  and  wish  of  not  only 
Bishop  Kenrick,  but  the  whole  hierarchy  of  the  country. 
Thus  was  he  left  to  bear  alone  for  nearly  ten  years  more 
the  heavy  and  daily  increasing  burden.  In  1840  the 
Catholic  population  in  the  diocese  of  Philadelphia  was 
estimated  at  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand,  with 
about  seventy  churches.  However,  the  Fifth  Provincial 
Council  of  Baltimore  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Propa- 
ganda of  the  necessity  of  a  division.  The  bulls  erecting 
the  diocese  of  Pittsburg  were  issued  August  7,  1843,  and 
the  Rev.  Michael  O'Connor  was  consecrated  its  first  bishop 
in  Rome,  whither  he  had  gone  to  be  freed,  if  possible,  of 
the  burden  of  the  episcopate. 

The  territory  left  to  Philadelphia  after  this  division  em- 
braced the  eastern  portion  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
the  State  of  Delaware,  and  the  western  portion  of  New 
Jersey.  In  the  diocese  thus  reduced  not  many  new  settle- 
ments grew  up ;  the  immigration  that  came  was  easily  in- 
corporated in  congregations  already  organized,  until  they 
grew  by  acquired  and  natural  increase  to  such  a  size  as 
to  require  division.  Though  for  a  period  newly  erected 
churches  were  not  frequent,  yet  there  was  a  growth  and 
increase  of  religion  in  stricter  ecclesiastical  discipline,  in 
better  provisions  for  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  faithful,  in 
educational  and  charitable  works.  The  diocese  of  Phila- 
delphia, as  reduced  by  the  diocese  of  Pittsburg,  contained 
fifty-one  churches  in  Pennsylvania,  four  in  New  Jersey, 
and  three  in  Delaware,  attended  by  twenty-nine  diocesan 
priests,  seven  Jesuits,  and  four  Augustinians. 


356  THE   A'OiV.LV  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxu. 

We  have  frequently  alluded  in  the  preceding  pages  to 
the  anti-Catholic  sentiment  that  was  sweeping  over  the 
country,  and  to  the  wise  and  mild  precautions  the  hie- 
rarchy had  been  taking  against  it  by  advising  to  their 
flocks  patience  and  calmness  in  the  presence  of  calumnies, 
threats,  and  dangers.  The  spirit  of  political  bigotry,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  be  balked  by  the  spirit  of  Christian  for- 
bearance. The  time  was  ripe  for  action ;  only  a  pretext 
was  wanting.  The  City  of  Brotherly  Love  furnished  the 
pretext  and  became  the  theater  of  fierce  Know-nothing 
riots. 

In  the  schools  of  Philadelphia  the  Protestant  version  of 
the  Bible  was  used.  The  bishop  petitioned  the  school 
board  to  allow  to  the  Catholic  children  the  use  of  the 
Catholic  version.  The  petition  was  misrepresented  and 
made  the  occasion  of  a  violent  pamphlet.  In  a  card  issued 
on  the  1 2th  of  March  the  bishop  explained  himself: 
"  Catholics  have  not  asked  that  the  Bible  be  excluded  from 
the  public  schools.  They  have  merely  desired  for  their 
children  the  liberty  of  using  the  Catholic  version  in  case 
the  reading  of  the  Bible  be  prescribed  by  the  controllers 
or  directors  of  the  schools.  They  only  desire  to  enjoy  the 
benefit  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
which  guarantees  the  rights  of  conscience  and  precludes 
any  preference  of  sectarian  modes  of  worship.  They  desire 
that  the  public  schools  be  preserved  from  all  sectarian  in- 
fluence, and  that  education  be  conducted  in  a  way  that 
may  enable  all  citizens  equally  to  share  in  its  benefits, 
without  any  violence  being  offered  to  their  religious  con- 
victions." 

But  it  was  impossible  to  so  present  the  question  that 
the  public  would  view  it  calmly.  The  Native  American 
party,  already  well  organized,  caught  readily  at  the  oppor- 
tunity.    Meetings  were  held  in  which  Protestant  ministers 


NA  Tl  VE  AMERICAN  RIO  TS.  357 

took  an  active  part,  and  thousands  were  induced  to  believe 
that  CathoHcs  wished  to  prevent  Protestant  children  from 
reading  their  own  Bible,  when,  in  fact.  Catholics  asked 
merely  that  the  Protestant  Bible  should  not  be  forced 
upon  Catholic  children.  As  the  election  time  approached 
a  plot  was  formed  to  provoke  a  disturbance  in  Philadelphia, 
and,  under  cover  of  it,  to  destroy  the  Catholic  churches. 
A  Native  American  meeting  was  called  in  which  violent 
language  was  used  against  the  Irish.  A  storm  of  rain 
compelled  the  crowd  to  seek  refuge  in  a  neighboring 
market-house.  In  the  rush  collisions  took  place,  blows  were 
struck,  and  firearms  were  used.  At  ten  o'clock  that  night 
the  Native  Americans  gathered  a  mob  and  began  an  attack 
on  the  houses  occupied  by  Irish  families  in  Franklin  and 
Second  streets.  The  inmates  fled,  and  the  mob,  after 
destroying  all  they  could  lay  hands  on,  set  fire  to  the 
buildings,  which  were  soon  consumed.  An  attempt  was 
made  by  those  who  were  attacked  to  defend  their  lives 
and  property,  and  some  of  the  rioters  were  slain.  Then 
the  cry  was  raised,  "To  the  nunnery!"  A  rush  was 
made  for  the  house  which  was  occupied  by  a  little  com- 
munity of  Sisters  of  Charity  on  the  corner  of  Second  and 
Phoenix  streets ;  but  a  volley  from  a  few  defenders  drove 
the  rioters  ofT  for  a  time. 

The  riot  thus  far  had  resulted  in  the  death  and  wound- 
ing of  several  men  and  the  wanton  destruction  of  private 
property.  Ever  a  friend  of  peace,  Bishop  Kenrick  next 
day  printed  and  posted  conspicuously  throughout  the  city 
this  card : 

"  To  the  Catholics  of  the  City  and  County  of  Philadelphia: 

"  The  melancholy  riot  of  yesterday,  which  resulted  in  the 

death  of  several  of  our  fellow-beings,  calls  for  our  deep 

sorrow,  and  it  becomes  all  who  have  had  any  share  in  this 


358  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

trap-ical  scene  to  humble  themselves  before  God  and  to 

o 

sympathize  deeply  and  sincerely  with  those  whose  relatives 
and  friends  have  fallen.  I  earnestly  conjure  you  all  to 
avoid  all  occasions  of  excitement,  and  to  shun  all  public 
places  of  assemblage,  and  to  do  nothing  that  in  any  way 
may  exasperate.  Follow  peace  w'ith  all  men,  and  have 
that  charity  without  which  no  man  can  see  God. 

"  Francis  Patrick, 

"  Bishop  of  Philadelphia" 

But  the  conspirators  had  no  wish  for  peace.  This  placard 
w^as  torn  down,  and  a  meeting  was  called,  which,  after  be- 
ing roused  to  the  highest  pitch  of  violence  by  the  speak- 
ers, moved  in  a  body  to  Kensington.  There  they  attacked 
the  Hibernia  hose-house,  which  was  soon  destroyed,  with 
its  contents,  and  twenty-nine  houses  inhabited  by  Irish 
people  were  set  on  fire.  Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs 
W'hen  the  First  Brigade  and  two  companies  of  the  Third 
Brigade  under  General  Cadwalader  appeared  on  the  scene  ; 
further  violence  was  prevented,  but  the  fire  department 
made  no  efTort  to  save  the  burning  houses. 

The  next  day  a  mob  gathered  at  St.  Michael's  Church 
and  set  it  on  fire,  as  well  as  the  priest's  residence.  No 
attempt  was  made  by  the  militia  or  firemen  to  prevent  the 
deed  or  check  the  fire,  though  the  militia  were  on  the 
ground.  St.  Augustine's  Church,  in  Fourth  Street,  was 
threatened.  Here  some  show  of  protection  was  made. 
Mayor  Scott  stationed  the  City  Watch  in  front  of  the 
building,  and  took  up  his  position  in  the  rear  with  a  posse 
of  citizens.  Undeterred  by  these,  the  mob  gathered  in 
the  morning  and  made  an  attack  with  bricks,  stones,  and 
other  missiles.  The  mayor  was  knocked  down  senseless, 
the  watch  and  posse  were  scattered.      Only  then  did  the 


PRUDENCE   OF  BISHOP  KENRICK.  359 

military  appear.  The  First  City  Troop  rode  by  at  a  gal- 
lop, but  made  no  efifort  to  disperse  the  mob.  The  church 
was  fired,  and  the  rise  of  the  destroying  flames  was  hailed 
with  cheers,  which  redoubled  when  the  cross  fell.  Between 
four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  mob  assembled 
agrain  and  renewed  the  attack  on  the  house  of  the  sisters 
in  Second  and  Phoenix  streets,  where  these  pious  women 
had  attended  Protestant  and  Catholic  alike  in  the  days  of 
the  cholera.  That  building  too  was  soon  a  blazing  mass. 
The  bishop,  with  the  seminarians  and  many  of  the 
clergy,  sought  shelter  in  the  houses  of  friends,  and  even 
the  orphan  asylums  were  not  deemed  safe  from  the  mob. 
Seeing  his  flock  threatened  in  their  homes,  seeing  the 
menace  of  destruction  hanging  over  every  church  in  the 
city.  Bishop  Kenrick  felt  it  a  duty  to  resort  to  the  extreme 
measure  of  suspending  all  public  religious  services.  He 
issued  the  following  card  : 

"  To  the  Catholics  of  the  City  aud  County  of  Philadelphia: 
"  Beloved  Children  :  In  the  critical  circumstances  in 
which  you  are  placed  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  suspend  the 
exercises  of  public  worship  in  the  Catholic  churches  which 
still  remain,  until  it  can  be  resumed  with  safety,  and  we 
can  enjoy  our  constitutional  right  to  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  our  conscience.  I  earnestly  conjure 
you  to  practice  unalterable  patience  under  the  trials  to 
which  it  has  pleased  divine  Providence  to  subject  you,  and 
to  remember  that  affliction  will  serve  to  purify  us,  and 
render  us  acceptable  to  God,  through  Jesus  Christ,  who 
patiently  suffered  the  cross. 

"  Francis  Patrick, 

"  Bishop  of  Philadelphia. 
"May  TO,  1844." 


36o  THE  kOMAiSf  CATHOLICS.  [Chajp.  ^cxI^. 

That  a  peaceful  and  numerous  community  of  American 
citizens  should  be  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  assem- 
bling for  the  exercises  of  religion  in  a  State  guarantee- 
ing equal  rights  to  all  denominations  is  something  that  no 
sophistry  can  explain.  A  grand  jury  was  packed  to  con- 
sider the  riots.  Its  finding  falsely  ascribed  them  to  "  the 
efforts  of  a  portion  of  the  community  to  exclude  the  Bible 
from  the  public  schools."  It  represented  those  who  were 
killed  while  burning  houses  as  "  unoffending  citizens,"  and 
never  mentioned  the  fact  that  two  Catholic  churches  and 
a  seminary  had  been  given  to  the  flames.  In  this  "  out- 
pouring of  frenzy  which  swept  over  this  city  in  1844," 
says  Rt.  Rev.  Michael  O'Connor,  "  which  laid  in  ashes 
some  of  our  churches  and  institutions,  and  threatened  all 
the  rest,  as  well  as  the  lives  of  the  clergy  and  people, 
many  blamed  Bishop  Kenrick  for  not  opposing  to  it  a 
bolder  front.  He  considered  it  more  conformable  to  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  to  bend  to  it  and  suffer.  He  thought 
it  best  even  to  retire  for  a  few  days  from  what  was  evi- 
dently a  momentary  outburst,  lest  the  tiger,  tasting  blood, 
might  become  more  infuriated.  Events  justified  his 
course.  The  torrent  that,  if  resisted,  would  have  accumu- 
lated its  waters,  and  eventually  swept  on  with  greater  fury, 
rolled  by  and  spent  itself.  His  order  to  suspend  divine 
service  was  the  severest  rebuke  the  fanatics  could  have 
received.  The  tramp  of  the  sentinel  pacing  before  the 
house  of  God,  deserted  on  the  Lord's  day,  with  this  order 
pasted  on  the  walls,  was  a  comment  that  roused  the  better 
minded." 

In  April,  1845,  Bishop  Kenrick  set  out  for  Rome.  He 
was  received  in  the  Eternal  City  with  the  honor  due  to  his 
reputation  for  piety  and  learning.  In  a  memoir  to  the 
Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  on  the  condition  of  his 
diocese  he  reported  that  of  a  population  exceeding  a  mill- 


THE   R'J:   RF.V.  MICHAEL    O'CONMOR.  361 

ion  the  Catholics  in  his  diocese  scarcely  numbered  one 
hundred  thousand.  There  were  few  direct  apostasies  from 
the  faith,  but  where  immigrants  settled  far  from  churches, 
their  children  often  grew  up  in  ignorance  of  religion  and 
strangers  to  the  Catholic  worship.  Children  whom  poverty 
or  loss  of  parents  left  at  the  mercy  of  Protestant  or  State 
institutions  as  a  rule  were  perverted.  The  diocese  con- 
tained sixty  churches,  ten  of  them  in  Philadelphia.  His 
priests  numbered  fifty,  and  the  Seminary  of  St.  Charles 
Borromeo  had  twenty-six  candidates  preparing  for  holy 
orders.  When  the  metropolitan  see  of  Baltimore  was  left 
vacant  by  the  death  of  Archbishop  Eccleston  the  holy  see 
transferred  Bishop  Kenrick  from  Philadelphia  to  Baltimore 
(August,  1 851).  To  him  was  reserved  the  ta.sk  and  the 
glory  of  presiding  as  apostolic  delegate  over  the  First 
Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore. 

Western  Pennsylvania  was  the  somewhat  vaguely  de- 
limited territory,  cut  off  from  the  jurisdiction  of  Philadel- 
phia by  the  brief  Univcrsi  Doi/iinici  {Angusi  1 1,  1843),  to 
be  erected  into  the  new  diocese  of  Pittsburg.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  bishopric  thus  formed  should  embrace  Bedford, 
Huntingdon,  Clearfield,  McKean,  and  Potter  counties, 
with  the  country  west  of  them.  The  clergyman  appointed 
to  the  new  see,  and  consecrated  August  15,  1843,  in 
Rome,  whither  he  went  to  ask  exemption  from  the  burden 
of  the  episcopate,  that  he  might  enter  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  the  Rev.  Michael  O'Connor,  was  a  man  remarkable 
for  learning,  and  stands  out  in  the  roll  of  American  bishops 
as  a  strong  and  striking  figure.  He  found  in  his  diocese 
thirty-three  churches,  fourteen  priests,  and  forty-five 
thou.sand  Catholics.  His  efforts  in  organizing  education 
and  charities  and  in  introducing  religious  orders  were  unre- 
lenting and  successful.     At  the  time  of  the  First  Plenary 


362  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxii. 

Council  of  Baltimore,  in  1852 — that  is  to  say,  nine  years 
after  the  erection  of  the  see  of  Pittsburg — such  had  been 
the  increase  of  Catholicity  within  its  limits  that  Bishop 
O'Connor  proposed  its  division  by  the  formation  of  a  new 
diocese  with  the  see  in  Erie. 


CHAPTER   XXIII.' 

NEW    YORK    AND    ITS    SUFFRAGANS  ( 1 829-5  2). 

We  have  seen  that  Bishop  Dubois,  instead  of  going  to 
the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore,  had  departed  for 
Rome  on  a  call  from  the  Propaganda.  In  his  report  to 
the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  he  estimated  the 
Catholic  population  of  his  diocese  at  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand,  scattered  among  three  millions  of  non-Catholics. 
To  attend  to  this  flock  he  had  but  eighteen  priests;  eight 
of  these  had  been  received  within  two  years ;  but  notwith- 
standing careful  examination,  he  found  himself  often  de- 
ceived as  to  the  real  usefulness  of  the  applicants.  The 
faithful,  as  a  rule,  were  poor,  struggling  hard  to  build 
churches  or  free  from  debt  those  already  built.  The  dio- 
cese could  not  prosper  or  have  such  a  body  of  priests  as 
it  required  until  a  theological  seminary  was  established. 
Church  extension  and  the  increase  of  the  clergy  were 
hampered  by  the  general  reluctance  of  Catholics  possessed 
of  means  to  make  contributions  unless  some  of  themselves, 
as  trustees,  had  entire  control. 

When  Bishop  Dubois  returned  from  Europe  (November 
20,  1 831)  he  found  his  episcopal  city  poorer  in  churches 
than  when  he  left  it ;  for  St.  Mary's  Church,  Sheriff 
Street,  after  being  robbed,  had  been  burned  by  incendi- 
aries. He  set  out  to  make  a  diocesan  visitation.  In  no 
fewer  than  eighteen  places  in  the  northern  and  western 
parts  of  the  State  he  found  Catholics  numerous  enough  to 

363 


364  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

establish  churches  and  maintain  resident  priests,  whom  he 
did  not  have  to  send.  This  condition  of  things  stimulated 
him  to  make  heroic  efforts  to  build  up  a  seminary,  for  ex- 
perience taught  him  that  he  could  not  expect  a  supply  of 
priests  of  the  right  kind  from  abroad.  As  his  means  were 
insufficient  to  obtain  a  suitable  site  in  or  near  the  city, 
he  purchased  a  farm  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  at 
Nyack.  The  building  planned  for  a  seminary  was  carried 
on  actively  during  the  year  1832  ;  but  the  completed  por- 
tion was  destroyed  by  fire  before  it  was  occupied.  How- 
ever, the  seminary  was  opened  in  the  old  farm  buildings 
on  the  ground,  with  Rev.  J.  McGerry  as  president,  Rev. 
John  McCloskey  as  professor,  and  five  students  in  theolog5^ 
In  addition  to  temporal  losses  the  bishop  had  to  suffer 
from  the  evil  that  desolated  almost  all  the  dioceses  formed 
out  of  the  old  colonies;  for,  strangely  enough,  it  was  with- 
in that  territory  that  trusteeism  prevailed,  as  if  it  were 
the  outcome  of  the  spirit  that  ruled  in  colonial  times,  when 
the  church  of  the  country  was  in  its  mission  state  and 
without  hierarchical  organization.  The  trustee  power  had 
always  been  strong  in  New  York,  and  aimed  to  control  all 
the  institutions  in  the  diocese.  A  slight  circumstance  in 
1834  brought  on  a  conflict  which  lasted  as  long  as  Dr. 
Dubois  had  the  administration  of  the  see  of  New  York. 
For  some  years  the  relations  between  the  bishop  and  the 
Rev.  Thomas  C.  Levins,  of  the  cathedral,  had  been  strained. 
This  clergyman  was  a  well-read  theologian,  an  able  con- 
troversialist, thoroughly  versed  in  all  branches  of  mathe- 
matics and  natural  philosophy,  a  mineralogist  and  a  lapi- 
dary, was  very  popular,  and  was  looked  upon  as  a 
champion  of  the  Catholic  cause.  Soon  after  the  return 
of  the  bishop  from  his  visitation  in  1834,  in  consequence 
of  a  disrespectful  reply  to  an  order  of  the  bishop,  though 
it   was  obeyed,   Rev.   Mr.   Levins    was    suspended.     The 


MARIA    MOXK.  365 

difficulty  might  easily  have  been  settled,  but  unfortunately 
the  trustees  of  the  cathedral  took  up  the  cause  of  the 
priest  and  so  embittered  the  situation  that  a  removal  of 
the  suspension  became  impossible  without  a  recognition 
of  their  assumed  powers.  A  regular  -ecclesiastical  war 
ensued.  The  trustees  appointed  the  suspended  priest 
rector  of  the  parochial  schools,  while  they  annoyed  the 
bishop  in  every  possible  way,  and  even  threatened  to  take 
away  his  salary. 

The  period  was  one  of  violent  anti- Catholic  prejudice,  as 
we  have  frequently  remarked  in  the  preceding  pages.  In 
New  York,  before  coming  to  acts  of  violence,  the  preju- 
dice showed  itself  in  literature.  Early  in  1836  a  work 
appeared  which,  though  not  relating  to  the  church  in  this 
country,  was  a  vile  attack  on  Catholicity,  and  turned  out 
to  be  for  Know-nothingism  what  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  " 
has  been  for  the  abolition  movement. 

A  wretched  girl,  Maria  Monk,  after  leading  a  life  of 
shame,  had  been  placed  by  her  mother  in  a  Magdalen 
asylum  at  Montreal,  from  which  she  was  dismissed  or 
escaped  by  the  aid  of  one  of  her  old  lovers.  She  was  the 
tool  employed  by  bigotry.  Unscrupulous  plotters  got  her 
to  pretend  that  she  had  been  not  a  penitent  in  a  Magdalen 
asylum,  but  a  nun  in  the  Hotel  Dieu.  A  narrative  was 
drawn  up  in  her  name  charging  the  devoted  nuns  with 
immorality,  harshness,  cruelty,  and  murder.  The  infamous 
book  was  oflFered  for  publication  to  the  Harper  Brothers, 
well-known  publishers  in  New  York.  The  firm,  lured  by 
prospective  profits,  undertook  to  issue  it,  but  from  a  sense 
of  shame  published  it  under  the  name  of  Howe  &  Bates, 
two  persons  in  their  employ.  Circulated  at  a  time  when 
ministers  and  newspapers  were  assailing  the  Catholic 
Church,  purporting  to  prove  that  priests  and  nuns  were 
monsters  of  vice,  it  was  greedily  received,  and  read  more 


366  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  CChap.  xxiii. 

widely,  perhaps,  than  any  book  ever  before  published  in 
this  country. 

Several  New  York  ministers  and  zealous  members  of 
Protestant  churches  took  up  the  wretched  woman,  paraded 
her,  and  maintained  the  truth  of  her  story.  The  profits 
of  the  fraud  must  have  been  very  great,  for  the  conspira- 
tors quarreled.  Maria  Monk  sued  in  the  Vice-Chancellor's 
Court  for  her  share  of  the  profits  as  author  and  holder  of 
the  copyright.  The  Harpers  denied  her  authorship  and  her 
ownership  of  the  plates  and  the  copyright.  Vice- Chan- 
cellor McCoun  declared  the  case  one  for  a  jury,  when 
*'  the  motives  of  those  who  have  prompted  and  promoted 
the  publication  will  be  duly  considered."  William  K. 
Hoyt  also  brought  suit  against  Rev.  J.  J.  Slocum  and 
Maria  Monk  in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  for  his 
share  in  getting  up  the  book.  Meanwhile  those  who  re- 
ceived the  wretched  woman  into  their  houses  soon  became 
disgusted  with  her  vicious  manner  and  language ;  she  sank 
lower  and  lower,  and  died  in  one  of  the  city  institutions. 
In  Montreal  her  wretched  life  was  known  to  many ;  the 
superior  of  the  Magdalen  asylum  to  which  she  had  been 
committed  recognized  her  pretended  descriptions  of  the 
Hotel  Dieu  as  partly  correct  descriptions  of  the  asylum. 
As  applied  to  the  Hotel  Dieu,  they  were  pronounced  ut- 
terly false  by  a  committee  of  Protestant  clergymen  and 
other  gentlemen  who  visited  it  book  in  hand. 

Though  all  this  was  made  known  to  the  public,  Rev. 
J.  J.  Slocum,  one  of  the  conspirators,  brought  out  a  second 
book  to  defend  the  "Awful  Disclosures."  Whereupon 
William  L.  Stone,  editor  of  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser," 
a  man  by  no  means  favorable  to  Catholics,  went  to  Mon- 
treal with  the  original  book  in  his  hand,  and  was  allowed 
to  make  a  thorough  and .  complete  examination  of  the 
Hotel  Dieu.     After  visiting  every  room  and  closet  from 


BISHOP  nCGIlES  AXD    TRUSTEEISM.  367 

the  cellar  to  the  attic,  Mr.  Stone  wrote :  "  The  result  is  the 
most  thorough  conviction  that  Maria  Monk  is  an  arrant 
impostor,  that  she  was  never  a  nun,  and  was  never  within 
the  cloister  of  the  Hotel  Dieu,  and  consequently  that  her 
disclosures  are  wholly  and  unequivocally,  from  beginning 
to  end,  untrue  ;  that  they  are  either  the  vagaries  of  a  dis- 
tempered brain,  or  a  series  of  calumnies  unequaled  in  the 
deprax'ity  of  their  invention  and  unsurpassed  in  their  enor- 
mity." 

Age  and  hardship  induced  Bishop  Dubois  to  seek  the 
aid  of  a  coadjutor.  The  Second  Provincial  Council  of 
Baltimore,  before  which  he  laid  his  desire,  forwarded  to 
Rome  for  the  coadjutorship  of  New  York  a  list  of  three 
names,  out  of  which  was  chosen  the  Rev.  John  Hughes,  a 
former  Emmitsburg  pupil  of  Bishop  Dubois,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  nomination  pastor  of  St.  John's  Church,  Phila- 
delphia. The  consecration  took  place  in  New  York, 
January  7,  1837.  The  coadjutor  had  come  none  too  soon. 
Before  the  end  of  January  Bishop  Dubois  was  struck  down 
with  paralysis,  and  though  he  rallied  for  a  while,  yet  his 
inability  to  manage  the  affairs  of  the  diocese  became  man- 
ifest.     He  survived  till  December  20,  1842. 

And  now  had  come  on  the  scene  a  great  and  strong 
churchman  who  was  to  leave  the  impress  of  his  mind  and 
will  on  the  church  not  only  of  New  York,  but  of  the  whole 
country.  Early  in  the  year  1839  an  event  occurred  which 
convinced  Bishop  Hughes  that  a  struggle  between  himself 
and  the  trustees  could  not  be  avoided.  A  civil  officer,  by 
virtue  of  a  written  instrument  from  the  trustees  of  the 
cathedral,  expelled  from  the  Sunday-school  a  teacher  ap- 
pointed by  the  bishop.  After  waiting  two  weeks  for  some 
official  expression  of  regret  or  some  explanation,  Bishop 
Hughes  issued  a  pastoral  address  to  the  congregation  of 
the  cathedral  in  the  name  of  Bishop  Dubois,  who  was  still 


368  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

nominally  in  charge  of  the  diocese.  "  Is  it  your  intention," 
he  asked,  "  that  such  powers  may  be  exercised  by  your 
trustees?  If  so,  then  it  is  almost  time  for  the  ministers  of 
the  Lord  to  forsake  your  temple  and  erect  an  altar  to  their 
God  around  which  religion  shall  be  free,  the  Council  of 
Trent  fully  recognized,  and  the  laws  of  the  church  applied 
to  the  government  and  regulation  of  the  church."  He 
then  passed  in  review  other  invasions  of  ecclesiastical 
power  by  the  trustees,  who  made  the  right  of  the  bishop 
to  appoint  priests  a  nullity  by  refusing  them  means  of 
subsistence,  and  assumed  the  right  to  appoint  and  remo\-e 
teachers  and  all  officials  who  attended  the  altar  or  chanted 
the  divine  service.  ^ 

He  backed  the  pastoral  letter  by  explanations  from  the 
pulpit,  and,  carrying  the  war,  so  to  speak,  into  Africa,  he 
advised  his  hearers  to  refuse  all  further  contributions  to 
the  trustees.  When  the  bishop,  he  added,  and  his  clergy 
shall  think  it  necessary  to  appeal  to  the  faithful  for  means 
of  support,  he  knew  that  the  response  would  be  generous. 
After  this  sermon  the  collection-plates  went  down  the 
aisles  empty  and  came  back  as  they  went.  Before  leaving 
the  sanctuary  the  bishop  called  a  meeting  of  the  pew-hold- 
ers of  the  cathedral  for  the  same  afternoon.  A  large 
audience  assembled;  he  appealed  to  the  sacrifices  their 
ancestors  had  made  for  the  faith,  and  exhorted  them  not  to 
yield  the  discipline  of  their  church  and  the  rights  of  their 
families  in  the  house  of  God  to  a  power  conferred  by  the 
State  with  a  view  to  their  good,  but  perverted  by  illegal 
interference  with  the  legislation  and  spiritual  authority  of 
the  church  established  by  Christ.  A  preamble  and  reso- 
lutions introduced  by  him  were  adopted,  and  he  felt  that 
he  had  won  the  people. 

He  followed  up  the  victory  by  submitting  a  series  of 
questions  to  his  assembled  clergy ;  they  unanimously  sus- 


THE   SCHOOL    QUESTION  IN  NEW    YORK.  369 

tained  the  pastoral  letter,  declaring^  that  its  principles  could 
not  be  denied  without  heresy  or  schism.  The  trustees 
made  an  ineffectual  effort  to  oppose  the  will  of  the  con- 
gregation. As  the  next  election  for  trustees  would  legally 
decide  the  matter,  Bishop  Hutches  began  in  April  an  elec- 
tioneering campaign  with  a  series  of  lectures  on  the  con- 
nection between  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  system  of 
secular  incorporation  of  lay  trustees,  which  had  never 
realized  the  anticipations  of  Archbishop  Carroll,  whom 
circumstances  compelled  to  tolerate  it,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, had  produced  havoc  in  many  parts  of  the  Catholic 
fold.  He  traced  its  history  in  different  States  and  convinced 
the  faithful  of  its  dangerous  character.  When  the  election 
came  off  the  new  members  elected  represented  the  bishop, 
the  clergy,  and  the  faithful.  The  opposition  was  broken 
forever  in  New  York ;  in  Buffalo,  however,  it  lasted  for 
some  years  longer. 

Bishop  Hughes  was  full  of  projects,  for  his  was  a  mind 
that  could  see  in  the  questions  and  events  around  him  the 
important  bearings,  and  his  was  a  will  that  knew  no  fear 
and  stopped  at  no  obstacle.  In  order  to  study  systems  of 
education  and  means  of  advancing  religion  he  undertook  a 
voyage  to  Europe  (October,  1839),  leaving  his  diocese  in 
the  hands  of  his  vicars  general.  During  his  absence  there 
arose  in  New  York  a  movement  which,  had  he  been  pres- 
ent, might  have  been  guided  on  other  lines  and  have 
reached  a  different  conclusion.  Under  the  School  Act 
of  18 1 2  the  Catholic  schools  of  New  York,  with  other 
denominational  schools,  received  a  ratable  proportion  of 
the  school  fund.  But  a  private  corporation,  the  Public 
School  Society,  which  had  been  growing  up  for  some 
years  past,  was  allowed  to  gradually  absorb  the  school 
fund,  and  the  Catholic  as  well  as  other  denominational 
schools  no  longer  received  their  share.     As  the  schools  of 


370  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

the  Public  School  Society  and  their  school-books  were 
offensively  anti- Catholic,  the  Catholic  body,  feeling  that 
an  injustice  was  done  them,  moved  to  obtain  a  restoration 
of  the  old  system  ;  that  is,  they  moved  to  put  out  of  the 
way  the  Public  School  Society.  This  action  brought  into 
the  arena  of  public  opinion  a  difficult  question  that  has 
not  yet  been  settled — the  combination  of  secular  and  re- 
ligious education.  Though  the  Baptists  had  been  the  first 
to  advocate  religious  instruction  in  the  schools  as  against 
the  secularism  of  the  Public  School  Society,  yet  as  soon 
as  Catholics  advocated  it  and  asked  a  return  to  the  old 
New  York  system,  the  Protestant  denominations  arrayed 
themselves  solidly  against  them  on  this  vital  point. 

At  this  time  there  were  free  schools  attached  to  each  of 
the  eight  Catholic  churches  in  the  city,  and  more  than  five 
thousand  children  attended  them.  The  State  superin- 
tendent called  the  attention  of  the  legislature  to  this  fact 
and  to  the  apparent  injustice  of  excluding  Catholics  from 
the  benefit  of  a  fund  to  which  they  contributed.  The 
petition  of  the  Catholic  schools  to  the  Common  Council 
was  rejected,  and  a  general  meeting  of  Catholics  was  held 
March  20,  1840,  in  which  a  memorial  to  the  legislature 
was  adopted  and  circulated  for  signatures.  It  was  not 
long  before  the  matter  was  taken  up  by  politicians  and 
made  an  issue.  Such  was  the  condition  of  the  question 
when  the  bishop  arrived.  Two  days  after  his  return  from 
Europe  he  attended  a  meeting  that  had  been  previously 
called,  and  in  a  careful  speech  made  himself  the  control- 
ling spirit  of  the  movement.  "  An  Address  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  to  their  Fellow-citizens  of  the  City  and  State," 
from  his  pen,  set  forth  distinctly  the  grounds  of  the  Cath- 
olic appeal,  and  presented  clearly  the  fact  that  the  Public 
Society  schools,  while  avowedly  non-sectarian,  were 
thoroughly  Protestant,  and  used  books  in  class  and  library 


BISHOP  HUGHES  AND    THE   SCHOOL    QUESTION.    37 1 

in  which  Catholics  and  their  reh'gion  were  coarsely  assailed. 
"  These  passages  were  not  considered  as  sectarian,  inas- 
much as  they  had  been  selected  as  mere  reading-lessons, 
and  were  not  in  favor  of  any  particular  sect,  but  merely 
against  the  Catholics.  We  feel  it  unjust  that  such  pas- 
sages should  be  taught  at  all  in  the  schools,  to  the  support 
of  which  we  are  contributors  as  well  as  others.  But  that 
such  books  should  be  put  into  the  hands  of  our  own  chil- 
dren, and  that,  in  part,  at  our  own  expense,  was  in  our 
opinion  unjust,  unnatural,  and  at  all  events  to  us  intoler- 
able." 

The  address  excited  much  attention,  and  a  "  Reply  "  to 
its  arguments  appeared,  issued,  evidently,  by  the  Public 
School  Society.  On  the  21st  of  September  a  meeting  of 
Catholics  adopted  a  petition  for  relief,  which  was  at  once 
presented  to  the  Board  of  Aldermen  then  in  session.  This 
petition  showed  the  Public  Society  schools  to  be  such  as 
would  not  permit  Catholics  to  send  their  children  to  them, 
and  asked  the  Common  Council  that  the  eight  Catholic 
schools  of  the  city  should  be  put  on  an  equality  with  the 
Public  Society  schools,  and  be  designated  as  "  entitled  to 
participate  in  the  Common  School  Fund  upon  complying 
with  the  requirements  of  the  law,  and  the  ordinances  of  the 
corporation  of  the  city."  With  this  petition  and  counter 
to  it  were  presented  to  the  Common  Council  a  remon- 
strance from  the  Public  School  Society  and  a  protest  from 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Cliurch.  On  the  day  appointed 
for  the  debate  before  the  Board  of  Aldermen  on  the  Cath- 
olic petition  and  the  opposing  documents.  Bishop  Hughes 
stood  alone  for  his  side.  Two  able  lawyers,  Theodore 
Sedgwick  and  Hiram  Ketchum,  were  arrayed  against  him, 
with  Rev.  Drs.  Bond,  Reese,  and  Bangs  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  Rev.  Dr.  Spring  of  tlic  Presbyterian,  and  Rev. 
Dr.  Knox  of  the  Reformed  Dutch  Church. 


372  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [CuAr.  xxiii. 

The  bishop  began  by  explaining  the  Catholic  petition 
and  the  grounds  of  the  prayer  for  relief;  he  then  analyzed 
the  counter-documents  and  showed  that  they  avoided  the 
real  question  and  raised  false  issues.  Mr.  Sedgwick  rose 
in  defense  of  the  Public  School  Society,  treating  its  history 
at"  length,  and  taking  the  legal  ground  that  the  Common 
Council  had  no  power  to  grant  the  petition.  He  spoke 
with  courtesy,  but  Mr.  Ketchum,  who  followed,  drifted 
into  a  strain  of  virulence  and  personal  invective,  eying 
the  bishop  as  if  he  were  some  degraded  culprit  at  the  bar, 
and  charging  the  Catholics  with  the  intent  to  drive  the 
Bible  from  the  schools.  Bishop  Hughes  in  reply  said,  and 
truly :  "  I  conceive  the  true  point  has  not  been  touched. 
Not  one  of  our  objections  or  scruples  of  conscience  has 
been  considered.  When  I  gave  reasons  for  our  objections, 
I  thought  some  argument  would  have  been  urged  fairly 
against  them ;  but  the  only  end  the  gentleman  has  in  view 
is  the  preservation  of  the  Public  School  Society." 

Dr.  Bond  took  the  floor  next  day  and  argued  that  to 
grant  the  petition  was  to  give  money  for  sectarian  teach- 
ing; he  then  launched  into  a  general  attack  on  the  Catho- 
lic Church  as  a  persecuting  church.  He  was  followed  by 
Rev.  Mr.  Reese  in  the  same  strain,  treating  the  schools  of 
the  society  as  though  they  were  government  institutions 
and  not  those  of  a  private  association.  Rev.  Dr.  Knox,  of 
the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  insisted  that  public  schools 
were  Protestant  institutions,  and  held  that  Protestants 
could  not  yield  to  any  Catholic  claim. 

Bishop  Hughes  summed  up  for  the  petitioners.  He 
cited  historical  instances  to  show  the  tolerant  action  of  the 
church.  In  regard  to  the  Bible  he  said:  "  They  have  rep- 
resented us  as  contending  to  bring  the  Catholic  Scriptures 
into  the  public  schools.  This  is  not  true.  .  .  .  They  have 
represented   us  as  enemies  to   the  Protestant  Scriptures. 


A    SCHOOL    COMrKOMlSE.  373 

Now  if  I  had  asked  this  honorable  board  to  exclude  the 
Protestant  Scriptures  from  the  schools,  then  there  might 
have  been  some  coloring  for  the  current  calumny.  But  I 
have  not  done  so.  I  say,  gentlemen  of  every  denomina- 
tion, keep  the  Scriptures  you  reverence,  but  do  not  force 
on  me  that  which  my  conscience  tells  me  is  wrong.  I  see 
the  question  stands  precisely  where  it  did  before  the 
gentlemen  began  to  speak,  and  I  see  the  same  false  issue 
—  and  I  challenge  any  gentleman  to  say  that  it  is  not  a 
false  issue  —  persevered  in  to  this  very  hour,  so  that  our 
argument  has  not  been  moved  one  iota ;  there  must  there- 
fore be  something  powerful  in  our  plain,  unsophisticated 
statement,  when  all  the  reasoning  brought  against  it  leaves 
it  just  where  it  was  before."  In  a  speech  lasting  three 
hours  and  a  half  the  bishop  reviewed  and  answered  his 
opponents,  defending  the  church  from  their  attacks,  and 
narrowing  the  subject  down  to  the  question  at  issue. 

In  regard  to  religious  teaching  in  the  parochial  schools, 
he  was  willing  to  have  it  after  regular  school  hours;  he 
even  offered  to  conform  the  system  of  secular  teaching  in 
the  parochial  schools  to  that  of  the  Public  School  Society, 
and  make  the  parochial  schools  subject  to  State  supervision. 
The  compromise  was  of  no  avail ;  it  was  evident  that  the 
question  was  prejudged.  As  Bishop  Hughes  well  said: 
"  Eight  or  nine  hours  were  wasted  in  the  discussion  of  a 
theological  tenet,  but  not  one  half-hour  was  given  to  the 
only  questions  which  the  Common  Council  should  have 
permitted  to  come  before  them,  namely,  Are  the  rights  of 
this  portion  of  the  citizens  violated  or  not  ?  If  so,  is  there 
in  our  hands  the  means  to  apply  a  remedy?  "  The  com- 
mittee of  the  Common  Council  reported  against  the  claim 
of  the  petitioners.  The  Catholics  then  forwarded  to  the 
legislature  petitions  representing  their  grievances  and  ask- 
ing redress.     The   matter  was  referred  to  Hon.  John   C. 


374  ^'^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

Spencer,  Secretary  of  State,  who  reported  against  the 
exclusive  power  given  to  the  Public  School  Society  in 
New  York  City,  and  recommended  that  the  State  system 
should  be  extended  to  that  city.  The  upshot  of  the 
struggle  was  that  a  school  bill,  introduced  by  William  B. 
Maclay,  extended  to  New  York  City  the  provisions  of  the 
general  act  in  relation  to  common  schools.  It  passed 
April  9,  1842,  and  the  Public  School  Society  went  out  of 
existence.  No  substantial  gain  had  been  acquired  by 
Catholics  by  this  struggle.  Their  schools  were  as  far  from 
relief  as  ever;  but  instead  of  a  society  absolutely  hostile 
to  them  and  controlled  by  their  religious  enemies,  the 
State  itself,  in  the  election  of  whose  officers  they  had  at 
least  a  voice,  became  the  controller  of  the  public  schools. 
This  at  least  was  a  change  for  the  better. 

The  future  supply  of  priests  was  the  object  of  serious 
thought  with  Bishop  Hughes,  as  it  had  been  with  his  pred- 
ecessor. The  first  foundation  of  a  seminary  had  not 
been  successful.  In  1840  a  second  foundation  was  made 
in  Fordham,  and  in  1842  there  were  thirty  students  in  the 
house,  nineteen  of  whom  were  pursuing  the  theological 
course.  Meanwhile  congregations  and  churches  were  fast 
increasing  throughout  the  diocese.  The  diocesan  synod 
of  August,  1842,  was  attended  by  fifty-four  priests.  The 
burden  was  becoming  too  heavy  for  Bishop  Hughes  to 
bear  alone,  especially  as  much  of  his  time  was  taken  up  by 
literary  work  and  a  very  extensive  correspondence.  In  the 
Fifth  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  he  solicited  the  aid 
of  a  coadjutor,  and  recommended  for  the  position  the  Rev. 
John  McCloskey,  president  of  St.  John's  College,  Ford- 
ham.  The  request  was  granted  by  the  holy  see,  and  on 
the  loth  of  March,  1844,  the  appointee  was  consecrated 
Bishop  of  Axiern,  ///  partibus  infideliuni. 

By  the  firmness  and  boldness  of  Bishop  Hughes  the  city 


KNOW-NOTHING  ISM  IN  NEW    YORK.  375 

escaped  the  disgraceful  and  terrible  riots  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  caused  a  reign  of  terror  in  Philadelphia.  The  situa- 
tion in  New  York  was  critical.  The  Native  American, 
party  had  elected  as  mayor  one  of  the  publishers  of  Maria 
Monk's  book.  Confident  in  the  support  of  the  incoming 
chief  magistrate,  they  called  a  public  meeting.  Its  object 
was  arson  and  murder.  Bishop  Hughes  was  a  man  of  de- 
cision. When  appealed  to  by  some  of  his  flock  for  advice, 
he  inquired  if  the  law  of  New  York  provided  compensation 
for  damage  done  by  rioters.  A  lawyer  assured  him  it  did 
not.  "  Then,"  said  he,  tersely,  "  the  law  intends  that  citi- 
zens should  defend  their  own  property."  The  "  Freeman's 
Journal  "  (Catholic)  immediately  issued  an  extra.  "  If," 
said  the  "  Journal,"  "  as  it  has  already  appeared  in  Phila- 
delphia, it  should  be  a  part  of  Native  Americanism  to  at- 
tack the  houses  and  churches  of  Catholics,  then  it  behooves 
Catholics,  in  case  all  other  protection  fail,  to  defend  both 
with  their  lives.  In  this  they  v/ill  not  be  acting  against, 
but  for  the  law.  ...  In  no  case  let  them  suffer  an  act  of 
outrage  on  their  property  without  repelling  the  aggression 
at  all  hazards."  The  bold  words  told.  It  was  the  turn  of 
the  leading  Native  Americans  to  become  suppliants.  They 
rushed  to  the  outgoing  mayor,  Morris,  to  solicit  protection. 
They  found  that  he  had  made  provision  to  quell  any  riot 
by  stern  and  decisive  measures.  In  an  hour  the  city  was 
placarded  with  posters  revoking  the  call  for  the  Know- 
nothing  meeting  announced  for  that  afternoon.  New 
York  escaped  a  terrible  danger,  for  a  large  Irish  society, 
with  divisions  throughout  the  city,  had  resolved  that  in 
case  a  single  church  was  attacked,  buildings  should  be 
fired  in  all  quarters  and  the  great  city  should  be  involved 
in  a  general  conflagration. 

In  1846  the  diocese  of  New  York  had  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  churches,  one    hundred    and  nine  priests,  a  semi- 


376  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

nary,  a  college,  and  in  the  city  itself  there  were  over  a 
hundred  thousand  Catholics.  Two  new  dioceses  were 
erected  out  of  the  original  one  in  1847:  the  diocese  of 
Albany,  to  which  was  transferred  the  Coadjutor  of  New 
York,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  McCloskey ;  and  the  diocese  of 
Buffalo,  to  which  was  appointed  the  Rev.  John  Timon,  of 
the  Congregation  of  the  Mission.  These  new  erections 
reduced  the  diocese  proper  of  New  York  to  the  counties 
in  New  York  State  south  of  the  forty-second  degree  and 
to  the  eastern  part  of  New  Jersey.  Thus  reduced  it  had 
eighty-eight  priests,  a  theological  seminary  with  twenty- 
two  students,  a  Jesuit  college,  an  academy  of  the  Ladies 
of  the  Sacred  Heart,  eleven  institutions,  such  as  schools 
and  asylums,  in  the  care  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  and  Sis- 
ters of  Charity ;  the  city  had  seventeen  churches,  which 
were  far  from  sufficient  for  the  number  of  Catholics. 

The  Tractarian  movement  in  England,  that  had  brought 
into  the  CathoHc  Church  the  brightest  lights  of  the  An- 
glican Church,  had  about  this  time  its  counterpart  in  the 
United  States.  Rev.  Mr.  Bayley  was  led  to  the  church 
by  the  study  of  the  early  fathers.  Others,  guided  in  the 
same  direction  by  the  influence  of  the  English  movement, 
renounced  worldly  prospects  to  enter  the  church.  Rev. 
Messrs.  Ford,  Preston,  Jedediah  V.  Huntington,  F.  E. 
White,  Donald  McLeod,  with  many  others,  became  Cath- 
olics. Earlier  still,  in  1844,  the  deep  thinker  and  vigorous 
writer,  Orestes  A.  Brownson,  had  come  into  the  church. 
The  effect  of  these  conversions  was  great,  for  submission  to 
the  authority  of  the  church  was  an  act  of  moral  heroism,  an 
acceptation  of  a  most  unpopular  faith  from  pure  motives 
of  conviction  and  duty,  in  the  face  of  popular  prejudice. 
Other  notable  converts  of  this  period  in  New  York  were 
Isaac  T.  Hecker,  A.  F.  Hewit,  who  had  been  an  Episco- 
palian  minister  in   Maryland,  Clarence   Walworth,  son   of 


NEW    YORK  AN  ARCHBISHOPRIC.  377 

Reuben  Hyde  Walworth,  Chancellor  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  Edgar  P.  Wadhams. 

The  time  had  come  when  the  church  in  the  United 
States  had  outgrown  its  cradle,  Baltimore.  The  Seventh. 
Council  of  Baltimore,  considering  the  great  increase  of  the 
Catholic  flock,  solicited  the  holy  see  to  erect  new  provinces 
within  the  ecclesiastical  domain  which  had  formed  at  first 
the  diocese  and  then  the  province  of  Baltimore.  The 
action  of  the  sovereign  pontiff"  was  delayed  for  some  time 
by  the  political  troubles  of  Italy.  But  when  more  peace- 
ful times  came.  New  York  was  erected  by  Pope  Pius  IX. 
(July  19,  185  I )  into  an  archiepiscopal  see,  with  the  Bishops 
of  Boston,  Hartford,  Albany,  and  Buffalo  as  its  suffragans. 
On  receiving  the  official  notification  of  his  promotion, 
Archbishop  elect  Hughes  proceeded  to  Europe  to  receive 
the  pallium  from  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  pontiff  him- 
self. The  prominence  which  the  archbishop  had  attained 
led  to  the  report  that  our  government,  which  then  had  a 
representative  in  Rome,  solicited  from  the  Vatican  his 
appointment  to  the  cardinalate.  It  seems  certain  that  the 
authorities  in  Washington,  through  their  Roman  minister, 
suggested  to  the  sovereign  pontiff  the  advantage  of  hav- 
ing this  country  represented  in  the  senate  of  the  Pope,  the 
College  of  Cardinals. 

The  diocese  of  Albany,  created  in  1847  by  his  Holiness 
Pope  Pius  IX.,  comprised  that  portion  of  the  State  of 
New  York  lying  north  of  the  forty-second  degree  and 
east  of  Cayuga,  Tompkins,  and  Tioga  counties.  It  was  a 
district  with  a  past  famous  in  the  annals  of  the  churth  and 
of  the  border  wars;  it  was  the  Iroquois  country.  The 
diocese  contained  about  twenty-five  churches,  attended 
by  thirty-four  priests,  but  had  no  institutions  except  an 
orphan  asylum  at  Albany  and  one  at  Utica  under  the 
Sisters  of  Charity,  with   free  schools  at   Utica  and   East 


3/8  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

Troy.  Dr.  McCIoskey,  appointed  to  this  see,  was  already 
invested  with  the  episcopal  dignity  as  Bishop  of  Axiern. 
He  was  duly  installed  by  Bishop  Hughes,  whose  coadjutor 
he  then  ceased  to  be,  September  19,  1847.  Such  was  his 
activity  and  such  the  inflow  of  immigration  into  his  diocese 
that  four  years  afterward  he  could  report  to  the  Leopold- 
ine  Society  that  the  Catholic  population  of  his  diocese  was 
seventy  thousand,  with  sixty-two  churches  and  fifty  priests, 
having  gained  in  two  years  fifteen  priests  and  twenty 
churches.  He  was  laboring  to  give  Albany  a  cathedral 
worthy  of  the  capital  of  the  State  of  New  York,  where 
fifteen  thousand  out  of  a  population  of  fifty  thousand  were 
Catholics,  at  the  time  that  the  First  Plenary  Council  was 
convoked  (1852). 

The  see  of  Buffalo  was  established  April  23,  1847,  by 
Pope  Pius  IX.,  who  detached  from  the  diocese  of  New 
York  all  that  part  of  the  State  lying  west  of  the  eastern 
limits  of  Cayuga,  Tompkins,  and  Tioga  counties.  It  con- 
tained forty  thousand  Catholics,  sixteen  priests,  and  the 
same  number  of  churches,  though  some  of  them  were 
humble  enough  to  be  styled  huts.  For  this  new  see  the 
sovereign  pontiff  selected  the  Very  Rev.  John  Timon, 
Visitor  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Mission,  a  priest  of 
learning,  energy,  and  experience,  who,  as  superior  of  a 
body  of  missionaries  and  as  Prefect  Apostolic  of  Texas, 
had  displayed  great  ability. 

The  spirit  of  discontent  and  rebellion,  fruits  of  trustee- 
ism,  was  rife  in  the  city  of  Buffalo.  Bishop  Timon  had 
to  meet  this  foe  of  religion  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
administration.  He  had  taken  up  his  residence  at  the 
Church  of  St.  Louis,  the  largest  congregation  in  the  city. 
He  was  notified  by  the  trustees  to  leave,  and  was  actually 
turned  out  of  doors.  Originally  made  up  of  different 
nationalities,  this  congregation  became  in  time  exclusively 


THE  DIOCESE   OF  BUFFALO.  379 

German,  and  maintained  toward  the  bishop  the  spirit  of 
revolt  and  schism  that  has  characterized  trusteeism  in 
our  history.  The  bishop  wished  to  place  tiie  church  in 
charge  of  the  Jesuit  fathers,  but  the  trustees  refused  to 
admit  them.  They  issued  hbels  against  him,  charging 
him  with  the  design  to  take  their  church  from  them  and 
give  it  to  the  Irish.  The  bishop  called  upon  the  congre- 
gation to  show  their  fidelity  to  the  discipline  of  the  church, 
warning  them  that  if  they  sustained  the  trustees  they 
must  cease  to  be  Catholics.  But  a  majority  did  sustain 
their  leaders,  expelled  the  pastor,  and  profaned  the  church 
with  forms  of  service  unauthorized  by  the  Catholic  relig- 
ion. Bishop  Timon  accordingly  placed  the  church  under 
an  interdict  and  warned  the  faithful  to  take  no  part  in  the 
unhallowed  rites;  this  extreme  measure,  however,  did  not 
at  once  put  an  end  to  the  schism. 

Not  only  was  Bishop  Timon  an  energetic  man,  as  his 
treatment  of  the  St.  Louis  trustees  shows,  but  he  was  a 
zealous  missionary,  untiring  in  his  diocesan  visitations. 
The  statistics  of  Buffalo  for  the  year  1852  indicate  the 
results  both  of  his  apostolic  work  and  of  the  Catholic 
immigration,  which  was  then  swelling  to  vast  proportions. 
They  show  seventy  churches,  fifty-eight  priests,  tweh-e 
ecclesiastical  students,  an  academy  for  girls,  a  hospital, 
three  orphan  asylums,  and  parochial  schools  in  the  more 
important  towns  of  the  diocese. 

From  1829  to  1834  the  administration  of  Bishop  Fen- 
wick,  of  Boston,  is  remarkable  for  his  ceaseless  visitations 
throughout  New  England  and  the  constant  increase  of 
Catholicity  in  new  congregations  and  churches.  To  go 
into  details,  naming  places  and  persons,  would  be  beyond 
the  scope  of  a  summary  such  as  this  work  is  intended  to 
be.  At  the  close  of  1836  tiiere  were  in  the  diocese  thirty- 
five  priests,  thirty  churches,  and  a  Catholic  population  of 


380  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [cHap.  xxiil. 

about  forty- five  thousand.  While  the  church  and  the 
true  faith  were  steadily  gaining  ground  in  New  England, 
giving  just  offense  to  none,  interfering  with  no  rights  of 
others,  an  incident  occurred  which,  though  trifling  in  itself, 
led  to  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  in  our  history,  the 
destruction  of  the  Ursuline  convent  of  Charlestovv^n. 

One  of  the  ladies  of  that  institution.  Sister  Mary  John, 
of  a  well-known  Boston  family,  holding  a  high  position  in 
the  community  as  a  teacher  of  music,  had  been  over- 
worked in  the  preparation  of  her  pupils  for  the  exhibition 
day  of  the  academy.  She  was  finally  prostrated,  and  in 
her  delirium  left  her  room,  ran  from  the  convent  to  the 
house  of  a  neighbor,  Mr.  Runey,  and  asked  to  be  taken 
to  the  residence  of  a  Mr.  Cutter,  whose  daughters  had 
been  her  pupils.  Word  was  sent  to  Bishop  Fen  wick,  who 
drove  to  Mr.  Cutter's  house  to  persuade  her  to  return  to 
the  convent.  Failing  to  see  her,  he  called  on  her  brother, 
Mr.  Thomas  Harrison.  Together  they  returned  to  Mr. 
Cutter's  house,  found  the  poor  nun  evidently  unnerved, 
and  succeeded  in  persuading  her  to  return  to  the  convent. 
A  physician  was  summoned,  and  under  his  treatment  her 
reason  returned  and  her  health  began  to  mend. 

Rumors  were  industriously  spread  by  malicious  persons 
and  circulated  by  the  press,  notably  by  the  "  Mercantile 
Journal,"  that  Miss  Harrison  was  detained  in  the  convent 
against  her  will  and  was  subjected  there  to  harsh  treat- 
m.ent.  On  the  night  of  the  9th  of  August,  1 834,  a  number  of 
evil-disposed  men,  the  dregs  of  the  city,  assembled  around 
the  convent.  After  shouting  "Down  with  the  convent! 
Down  with  the  nuns!"  they  called  for  the  superior  and 
demanded  to  see  Miss  Harrison  in  order  to  learn  from  her 
own  lips  if  she  were  detained  in  the  house  against  her  will. 
She  assured  them  that  she  was  not  detained,  but  could  go 
when  she  liked.      The  Messrs.  Cutter,  who  were  present, 


BURNING  Of  THE  CIIARLESTOWN  CONJ-ENT.        38  I 

perfectly  satisfied  with  this  announcement  of  the  sister, 
endeavored  to  undeceive  the  pubhc  and  made  a  statement 
to  that  effect ;  but  the  assurances  came  too  late  to  do  any 
good. 

In  view  of  the  threatening  aspect  of  public  opinion  it 
may  seem  strange  that  the  bishop  and  the  Catholic  com- 
munity made  no  call  on  the  authorities  to  protect  the  nuns 
and  their  property  from  insult  and  violence.  But  it  should 
be  remembered  that  although,  Catholics  themselves,  their 
beliefs  and  practices  had  been  frequently  assailed  with  the 
coarsest  virulence,  vet  no  actual  violence  had  been  offered 
them,  and  they  believed  defenseless  ladies  to  be  as  safe  in 
their  home  under  the  protection  of  the  laws  of  Massachu- 
setts as  though  they  were  guarded  by  the  armed  ranks 
of  a  devoted  soldiery.  Even  when  Bishop  Fenwick  was 
vaguely  informed  that  the  convent  might  be  attacked,  he 
did  not  credit  the  rumor.  Parents,  non-Catholic  as  well 
as  Catholic,  who  had  daughters  in  the  academy  seemed 
lulled  into  a  like  confidence.  But  bigotry  was  rousing  the 
wildest  fanaticism,  regardless  of  the  li\es  of  the  nuns  and 
of  the  fifty-five  young  ladies  under  their  care.  Inflamma- 
tory sermons  were  preached,  and  meetings  were  held  to 
organize  the  work  of  destruction.  In  the  dead  of  night 
the  mob  came,  unchecked  by  any  authority,  shouting 
roars  of  hate  and  rage.  Not  an  officer,  not  a  defender, 
was  there  to  protect  defenseless  women  and  children 
roused  hastily  from  sleep  and  driven  half-dressed  into  the 
night.  Musket-shots  rang  above  the  shouts.  The  door 
was  broken  in  ;  the  mob  entered  and  drove  the  inmates, 
shrinking  and  trembling  with  fear,  to  the  upper  stories. 
Then  began  a  demons'  revel.  The  fences  and  outhouse' 
were  used  to  light  up  bonfires  fed  with  barrels  of  tar  and 
other  combustibles.  Casks  of  liquor  were  opened,  and 
rum  nerved  the  frenzied  mob  to  the  work  of  plunder  and 


382  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai'.  .xxiii, 

incendiarism.  The  superior,  seeing  no  hope  of  relief, 
marshaled  her  sisters  and  pupils  and  left  the  building. 
Then  the  rioters,  undisturbed  masters  of  the  situation, 
took  possession,  smashed  furniture,  profaned  the  chapel, 
stole  garments  and  jewelry,  and  applied  the  torch.  As 
the  fire  died  away  the  mob  withdrew  unchecked,  unham- 
pered, unpursued,  exultant  in  a  noble  deed  gloriously, 
heroically  done. 

Boston  was  startled  in  the  morning  by  the  report  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Charlestown  convent.  In  the  first 
impulse  of  honest  indignation  and  shame  a  meeting  was 
called  in  Faneuil  Hall,  at  which  Theodore  Lyman,  Esq., 
mayor  of  Boston,  presided.  Addresses  were  made  by  the 
best  citizens,  and  resolutions  were  adopted  in  which  the 
attack  on  the  convent  was  declared  to  be  a  base  and  cow- 
ardly act,  a  high-handed  violation  of  the  law.  The  mayor 
was  requested  to  appoint  a  committee  to  investigate  the 
whole  affair  and  to  consider  the  expediency  of  providing 
funds  to  repair  the  damage  done  to  the  sisters.  A  meet- 
ing held  at  Cambridge  expressed  similar  feelings.  As  the 
news  spread  outside  the  city,  Irish  Catholic  laborers  em- 
ployed on  the  railroads  came  pouring  into  Boston,  bent 
on  vengeance.  They  might  have  done  violence  had  not 
Bishop  Fenwick  sent  his  clergy  to  dissuade  them  from  any 
attempt  at  retaliation. 

The  moment  was  full  of  danger;  the  cathedral,  the 
house  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  and  other  Catholic  property 
in  Boston  were  threatened  for  several  days  by  menacing 
crowds.  The  riot  might  break  out  anew  at  any  minute. 
In  view  of  the  dangerous  state  of  affairs  the  infantry  of 
the  Third  Brigade,  Colonel  Prescott,  was  called  out  and 
kept  under  arms,  and  respectable  citizens  prepared  to  sup- 
port the  authorities.  The  committee  appointed  at  the 
Faneuil  Hall  meeting  made  a  report  showing  the  ground- 


RIOTOiS   COM)HiOX   Of  BOSTON. 


:>^0 


lessness  of  the  rumors  circulated  against  the  nuns.  The 
report  did  something  to  disabuse  a  few  of  those  who  had 
been  misled,  but  the  larger  number  would  not  yield  to  its 
testimony. 

Meanwhile  Governor  Davis  issued  a  proclamation  offer- 
ing a  reward  for  the  detection  of  the  offenders.  A  num- 
ber were  arrested  and  committed,  and  preparations  were 
made  to  bring  them  to  trial,  which  began  in  the  Supreme 
Judicial  Court  of  East  Cambridge  on  the  2d  of  December. 
It  soon  became  apparent,  however,  that  the  State  was 
taking  no  means  to  secure  a  conviction.  No  witnesses 
were  called  to  connect  any  of  the  accused  with  a  confla- 
gration witnessed  by  at  least  a  thousand.  The  counsel  for 
the  defense  appealed  to  the  religious  prejudice  of  the  jury 
by  cross-examining  Catholic  witnesses  as  to  their  religion. 
The  argument  of  the  attorney  general,  James  T.  Austin, 
presented  the  evidence  strongly,  but  Judge  Shaw  charged 
that  the  accusation  of  arson  could  not  be  sustained.  The 
jury  returned  a  verdict  of  "  not  guilty."  The  acquitted 
criminals  became  the  lions  of  the  hour.  Emboldened  by 
the  acquittal,  the  rioters  threatened  churches  in  Boston 
and  the  convent  in  Roxbury.  As  there  seemed  to  be  no 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  city  and  State  authorities  to 
give  protection,  and  as  the  federal  authorities  instructed 
Commodore  Elliott  not  to  interfere  in  case  of  a  riot,  but 
to  leave  matters  solely  to  the  officials  of  the  city  and  the 
State,  the  bishop  called  on  the  Catholics  to  prepare  for 
resistance.  Well  mioht  he  write :  "  We  live  in  awful 
times.  All  this  movement  on  the  part  of  the  lower  classes 
of  people  is  occasioned  by  their  jealousy  of  the  Catholic 
religion.  Their  object  is  to  put  it  down  if  they  can." 
Application  was  made  to  the  General  Court  of  the  legislature 
of  Massachusetts  for  indemnitv  for  tlie  destruction  of  the 
convent  •  but  although  a  committee  reported  in  favor  of 


384  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Cuap.  xxiii. 

granting  in  compensation  a  sum  of  money,  nothing  came  of 
it.  The  matter  was  again  brought  up  in  1 842,  with  a  similar 
result — a  favorable  report,  but  justice  withheld.  Yet  Judge 
Thatcher,  in  his  charge  to  the  grand  jury  of  Sussex  County 
(December,  1834),  said:  "  In  the  destruction  of  the  Ursu- 
line  convent  on  Mount  Benedict  it  was  seen  that  a  portion 
of  the  people  could  wage  war  equally  against  political 
liberty,  the  sacred  rights  of  property,  and  religious  charity. 
The  just  and  enlightened  everywhere  will  look  to  the 
justice  of  the  country  and  to  its  liberality  to  the  sufferers 
to  efiface  the  foul  disgrace."      It  was  never  effaced. 

Bishop  Fenwick  began  to  feel  the  weight  of  his  long 
labors  in  the  priesthood 'and  the  episcopate.  A  coadjutor 
and  a  division  of  the  diocese  were  absolutely  needed.  He 
laid  these  matters  before  his  fellow-bishops  in  council  in 
Baltimore,  and  a  petition  was  forwarded  to  the  holy  see 
requesting  the  erection  of  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut 
into  a  diocese,  with  the  see  at  Hartford,  recommending 
Rev.  William  Tyler  as  the  bishop,  and  asking  the  appoint- 
ment of  Rev.  John  B.  Fitzpatrick  as  Coadjutor  of  Boston. 
Bishop  Tyler  was  consecrated  in  the  Cathedral  of  the 
Holy  Cross,  Boston,  by  Bishop  Fenwick,  and  Dr.  Fitzpatrick 
in  the  Chapel  of  the  Visitation,  Georgetown,  in  the  year 
1844. 

Much  had  been  accomplished  during  Bishop  Fenwick's 
administration  in  the  face  of  the  violent  opposition  from 
Know-nothings  without  and  trustees  within  the  church. 
Twenty-five  churches  had  been  erected,  nineteen  priests 
had  been  ordained,  a  college,  an  orphan  asylum,  and  pa- 
rochial schools  were  well  on  the  way  of  organization. 
The  diocese  of  Boston,  now  shorn  of  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut  by  the  erection  of  the  see  of  Hartford,  com- 
prised Maine  with  5240  Catholics  and  5  priests.  New 
Hampshire  with  1370  Catholics  and  2  priests,  Vermont  with 


THE    CnCKCJJ   IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  385 

53  1 1  Catholics  and  2  priests,  Massachusetts  with  ^\,^']2 
Catholics  and  2  i  priests.  It  was,  then,  with  a  record  made 
glorious  by  energetic  toil  anil  hard-earn.ed  success  that 
Bishop  Fenwick  passed  from  the  scene  of  his  labors  to  eter- 
nal repose,  January  1 1 ,  1 845.  A  more  beautiful  eulogy  could 
not  be  pronounced  on  him  than  these  words  of  Dr.  Brown- 
son  :  "Take  him  all  in  all,  he  was  such  a  man  as  Heaven  sel- 
dom vouchsafes  us.  It  will  be  long  before  we  look  on  his 
like  again.  But  he  has  been  ours  ;  he  has  left  his  light  along 
our  pathway  ;  he  has  blessed  us  all  by  his  pure  example 
and  his  labor  of  love,  and  we  are  thankful.  We  bless 
God  that  he  gave  him  to  us ;  we  bless  God  that  he  has 
seen  fit  to  remove  him  from  his  labors  to  his  rest." 

His  successor,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Bernard  Fitzpatrick, 
was  a  native  of  Boston,  had  received  his  early  education 
in  the  schools  of  the  city,  and  was  therefore  well  fitted 
to  carry  the  church  of  New  England  safely  through  the 
stormy  period'of  Know-nothingism.  His  thorough  Amer- 
icanism, his  learning,  his  indefatigable  activity  in  the  ad- 
ministration and  visitation  of  his  diocese,  brought  it  in  a 
few  years  to  a  high  degree  of  efificiency.  On  the  eve  of 
the  First  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  (1852)  the  diocese 
had  seventy-two  priests,  seventy-three  churches,  with  many 
others  in  progress  of  erection ;  a  more  than  doubling 
within  seven  years. 

Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  which  had  formed  part 
of  the  diocese  of  Boston  for  thirty-five  years,  were 
erected  into  a  separate  diocese  in  1844, with  the  episcopal  see 
in  Hartford.  The  first  bishop  was  the  Rt.  Rev.  William 
Tyler,  a  native  of  Vermont.  The  diocese  of  Hartford  at 
this  time  contained  a  Catholic  population  of  about  ten 
thousand,  a  little  more  than  half  being  in  Rhode  Island. 
There  were  churches  at  Hartford,  New  Haven,  New  Lon- 
don,   Bridgeport,    Newport,    Providence,    Pawtucket,    one 


386  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxiii. 

nearly  completed  at  Woonsocket,  and  one  begun  in  Mid- 
dletown.  These  churches  and  the  annexed  stations  were 
attended  by  six  priests.  As  Providence  contained  the 
largest  Catholic  population  and  two  Catholic  churches, 
Bishop  Tyler  selected  it  as  his  residence  and  made  the 
Church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  his  procathedral.  The 
expectations  raised  by  the  appointment  of  a  man  so  well 
fitted  as  was  Bishop  Tyler  for  the  upbuilding  of  a  new 
diocese  were  foiled  by  his  untimely  death,  which  occurred 
the  13th  of  June,  1849,  after  a  short  episcopate  of  five 
years.  His  successor,  the  Rt.  Rev.  Bernard  O'Reilly,  was 
consecrated  November  10,  1850.  Immigration  just  then 
was  giving  an  impetus  to  the  church  in  New  England 
which  can  best  be  estimated  from  the  following  statistics. 
The  diocese  of  Hartford,  when  Bishop  O'Reilly  was  in- 
stalled, contained  a  Catholic  population  of  20,000  souls,  12 
churches,  and  14  priests.  One  year  later  the  Catholic 
population  was  estimated  at  40,000,  the  priests  were  28, 
the  clerical  students  were  23.  These  figures  show  to 
what  a  tide  had  risen  the  immigration  of  those  days. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

THE    TROVINCES    OF    CINCINNATI    AND    NEW    ORLEANS 

(1829-52). 

Bishop  Fenwick,  of  Cincinnati,  did  not  long  survive 
the  close  of  the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore.  In 
the  autumn  of  1832  the  cholera  then  prevailing  in  the 
country  seized  on  the  bishop  while  he  was  on  a  visitation, 
and  caused  his  speedy  death.  In  the  month  of  May,  1833, 
news  came  that  the  successor  of  Bishop  Fenwick  was  to 
be  the  Rev.  John  Purcell,  and  that  a  new  diocese  was  to 
be  detached  from  Cincinnati,  having  its  see  in  Detroit  and 
comprising  Michigan  and  the  undefined  country  to  the 
west.  Bishop  Purcell  was  consecrated  in  Baltimore  Octo- 
ber 13,  1833.  The  diocese  of  Cincinnati,  now  restricted 
to  the  State  of  Ohio,  contained  about  thirty  thousand 
Catholics,  seventeen  priests,  nine  brick  and  eight  wooden 
churches.  Immigration  was  beginning  to  pour  into  the 
State,  and  it  needed  constant  and  heroic  efforts  on  the 
part  of  the  few  priests  to  furnish  the  newcomers  with 
opportunities  to  worship  and  receive  the  sacraments,  and 
on  the  part  of  the  bishop  to  provide  the  new  settlements 
springing  up  daily  with  the  needed  clergymen.  In  a  letter 
(1838)  to  the  Leopoldine  Association,  which  had  contrib- 
uted generously  to  the  missions  in  Ohio,  the  bishop  gives 
a  glimpse  of  the  growth  of  five  3-ears.  At  that  date  he 
had  thirty  priests  and  thirteen  students  of  philosophy  and 

387 


388  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

theology  in  his  seminary.  His  churches  numbered  thirty- 
five,  most  of  them  poor  and  rough.  He  had  parochial 
schools  and  a  girls'  orphan  asylum  in  Cincinnati. 

Statistics  of  five  years  later  (1843),  given  in  a  second  let- 
ter of  the  bishop  to  the  Leopoldine  Association,  show  that 
the  growth  continued  to  be  rapid  and  that  the  population 
was  not  outstripping  the  clergy.  At  the  close  of  that 
year  the  diocese  of  Cincinnati  contained  fifty-five  churches, 
with  fifteen  in  course  of  erection,  forty-two  priests  on  the 
mission,  and  twelve  otherwise  engaged.  The  population 
of  the  diocese  was  estimated  at  fifty  thousand.  At  the 
end  of  the  3^ear  1845 — a  year  memorable  in  the  history  of 
Cincinnati  because  of  the  dedication  of  its  cathedral — that 
is  to  say,  two  years  after  the  above  report,  another  letter  to 
the  Leopoldine  Association  claims  for  the  diocese  seventy- 
five  thousand  Catholics,  seventy  churches,  sixty-six  priests, 
five  orphan  asylums,  and  many  schools.  Such  were  the 
results  of  the  mighty  flood  of  immigration  that  was  cover- 
ing the  West. 

As  his  episcopal  see  was  at  the  southern  boundary  of 
the  State,  Bishop  Purcell  felt  that  the  time  had  come  for 
the  erection  of  a  new  diocese  in  the  northern  part  of  Ohio. 
Before  the  holding  of  the  Sixth  Provincial  Council  of 
Baltimore  he  made  his  views  and  wishes  known  to  the 
metropolitan.  When  the  council  convened  in  May,  1846, 
the  assembled  bishops  approved  the  plan  and  solicited 
of  the  holy  see  the  erection  of  a  see  in  Cleveland.  The 
sovereign  pontiff"  created  the  new  bishopric,  embracing  all 
the  State  of  Ohio  north  of  a  line  drawn  across  the  State 
at  40°  41'.  As  reduced  by  the  bull  erecting  the  see  of 
Cleveland,  the  diocese  of  Cincinnati  comprised  eighty 
churches  and  chapels,  nine  of  them  in  the  city  of  Cincin- 
nati, seventy-seven  priests,  and  a  Catholic  population  of 
one  hundred  thousand.     Such  magnificent  growth,  indi- 


BISHOP  FLA  GET.  389 

eating  where  lay  the  future  expansion  of  the  nation, 
induced  the  Seventh  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  (May, 
1849)  to  solicit  the  erection  of  Cincinnati  into  a  metropol- 
itan see,  with  Louisville,  the  original  diocese  of  the  West, 
Vincennes,  Detroit,  and  Cleveland  as  suffragans. 

Bare  and  lifeless  on  this  printed  page  are  the  statistics 
we  have  just  given ;  but  to  the  imagination  of  the  histo- 
rian how  eloquent  they  are !  They  tell  of  heroic  feats  of 
apostolic  zeal,  of  hardships  and  perils  by  water  and  land, 
of  lives  spent  and  deaths  incurred  in  the  pursuit  of  souls ; 
they  tell  of  brave  men  and  women  crossing  mountains 
and  plains,  floating  down  great  rivers,  in  search  of  homes ; 
they  tell  of  the  settler's  hut,  of  forests  cleared,  of  all  the 
weak  beginnings  and  mighty  struggles  out  of  which  was 
born  our  great  Western  commonwealth.  They  are  the 
outlines  of  a  story — the  Making  of  a  Nation — fit  subject 
for  one  of  humanity's  grandest  poems. 

After  the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore,  Bishop 
Flaget  believed  that  his  period  of  active  usefulness  was 
past,  and  in  this  spirit  he  wrote  to  the  sovereign  pontiff 
asking  to  be  relieved  of  the  burden  of  his  diocese.  In 
view  of  the  advanced  age  and  infirmities  of  his  coadjutor, 
Bishop  David,  Dr.  Flaget  proposed  that  Rev.  Guy  Ignatius 
Chabrat  should  be  made  bishop  and  administrator  of  the 
diocese.  His  resignation  was  not  at  first  deemed  best  for 
the  good  of  religion,  but  his  constancy  finally  prevailed. 
Late  in  the  year  1833  information  came  from  Rome  that 
his  resignation  had  been  accepted.  But  the  holy  see, 
while  allowing  the  retirement  of  Bishop  Flaget,  did  not 
take  any  such  action  as  he  had  proposed  in  regard  to  the 
administration  of  the  diocese.  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  David  be- 
came, by  right  of  succession,  the  Bishop  of  Bardstown. 
Now  he  was  more  infirm  than  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Flaget,  and 
had  become  so  corpulent  that  it  was  utterly  impossible  for 


396  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

him  to  make  the  long  journeys  on  horseback  required  by 
the  visitation  of  the  churches. 

The  first  act  of  his  administration  was  to  appoint  Bishop 
Flaget  his  vicar  general,  with  the  most  ample  powers  he 
could  confer,  and  the  next  was  to  transmit  to  Rome  his 
resignation  of  the  see  of  Bardstown,  with  a  clear  statement 
of  the  causes  which  unfitted  him  for  the  discharge  of  the 
duties  demanded  by  the  position.  He  advised  the  reap- 
pointment of  Bishop  Flaget.  In  May,  1833,  the  docu- 
ments arrived  by  which  Bishop  David's  resignation  was 
accepted  and  Bishop  Flaget's  reappointment  to  the  see 
was  decreed.  No  sooner  was  this  done  than  Bishop 
Flaget  solicited  the  appointment  of  Father  Chabrat  as  his 
coadjutor,  which  request  was  granted,  the  consecration 
taking  place  in  Bardstown  July  20,  1834.  Bishop  Flaget 
had  long  urged  the  erection  of  an  episcopal  see  in  Indiana, 
and  his  desire  was  gratified  when  Pope  Gregory  XVI.,  by 
bull  of  the  6th  of  May,  1834,  estabhshed  the  diocese  of 
Vincennes.  Thus  was  he  relieved  of  all  the  territory 
north  of  the  Ohio  River,  which  originally  had  been 
annexed  to  Bardstown,  but  was  now  committed  to  the 
care  of  the  Bishops  of  Cincinnati,  Detroit,  and  Vincennes. 
His  diocese  was  growing  slowly  but  steadily,  gaining 
less  than  the  Northern  dioceses  by  immigration,  but  com- 
paratively well  supplied  with  churches,  priests,  schools, 
and  asylums. 

In  April,  1837,  Bishop  Chabrat  attended  the  Third 
Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore  and  explained  to  the 
fathers  the  desire  of  Bishop  Flaget  for  the  formation  of 
the  State  of  Tennessee  into  a  diocese.  In  the  fifth  private 
congregation  the  assembly  decided  to  petition  the  sover- 
eign pontiff  to  erect  a  see  in  Nashville,  with  Tennessee  as 
the  diocese.  Pope  Gregory  XVI.,  complying  with  the  de- 
sire of  the  American  episcopate,  erected  that  see  on  the  25th 


DEATH  OF  BISHOP  FLA  GET.  391 

of  July,  1837.  By  this  action  the  diocese  of  Bardstown 
was  reduced  to  the  State  of  Kentucky.  Louisville  had 
by  this  time  grown  to  be  a  city  of  twenty  thousand  inhab- 
itants, and  its  Catholic  institutions  had  so  developed  that 
Bishop  Flaget  concluded  it  was  the  proper  residence  for 
the  head  of  the  diocese ;  though  he  was  reluctant  to  leave 
Bardstown,  the  cradle  of  Catholicity  in  the  West,  and  the 
institutions  which  had  been  so  laboriously  built  up  during 
thirty  years  of  his  episcopate.  The  matter  was  presented 
to  the  holy  see,  and  a  rescript  of  the  Pope  authorized  him 
to  remove  the  see  to  Louisville  ;  however,  he  was  to  retain 
the  title  of  the  former  see  and  style  himself  "  Bishop  of 
Louisville  and  Bardstown." 

In  1843  a  11SW  trouble,  of  a  painful  character,  afflicted 
the  heart  of  the  venerable  bishop.  The  staff  on  which  he 
leaned  was  yielding ;  his  coadjutor.  Bishop  Chabrat,  showed 
an  alarming  decline  of  health  and  was  threatened  with  the 
complete  loss  of  sight.  Convinced  that  his  days  of  use- 
fulness in  the  episcopate  were  ended,  and  anxious  to  give 
way  to  a  younger  and  abler  man,  the  afflicted  coadjutor 
forwarded  to  Rome  his  resignation,  which  after  considera- 
tion was  accepted.  To  be  thus  left  alone  in  his  extreme 
old  age,  with  infirmities  fast  growing  upon  him,  was  in- 
deed a  severe  trial  for  Bishop  Flaget,  who  had  already 
endured  so  much  and  had  reached  the  age  of  fourscore. 
Naturally  he  turned  in  his  distress  to  his  vicar  general, 
Very  Rev.  Martin  J.  Spalding,  who,  after  a  brilliant  course 
of  studies  in  Rome,  had  labored  in  Kentucky  for  fourteen 
years  with  great  ability  and  judgment.  An  American  of 
old  lineage,  learned,  eloquent,  earnest,  manly,  he  was  well 
fitted  for  the  see  of  his  native  State.  He  was  appointed 
Bishop  of  Lengone,  in  partibiis  iujidclinui,  and  Coadjutor 
of  Louisville,  with  the  right  of  succession. 

Greatly   relieved   in   mind,   though  extremely   weak   in 


392  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

body,  the  aged  bishop  performed  his  last  pubHc  official  act 
in  the  consecration  of  his  third  coadjutor  on  the  loth  of 
September,  1848.  After  that  he  gradually  grew  too  weak 
to  oflfer  the  holy  sacrifice,  and  in  the  summer  of  1849 
symptoms  of  an  alarming  character  appeared.  He  sank 
so  gradually  as  to  excite  little  immediate  alarm  until  Feb- 
ruary, 1850.  His  last  words  were  expressions  of  attach- 
ment to  his  clergy,  religion,  and  people,  and  his  last  act 
was  an  effort  to  give  them  his  episcopal  benediction. 
While  the  "  Sufferings  of  Christ "  were  read  to  him  he 
calmly  expired,  February  11,  1850.  "  He  died  as  he  had 
lived — a  saint,"  wrote  Bishop  Spalding;  "  and  the  last  day 
was  perhaps  the  most  interesting  and  impressive  of  his 
whole  life.  Tranquilly  and  without  a  groan  did  he  fall 
asleep  in  the  Lord,  like  an  infant  gently  sinking  to  its 
rest."  With  him  ended  the  last  tie  that  bound  the  pros- 
perous church  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  with 
the  nascent  church  of  the  first  years  of  the  century,  when 
three  newly  consecrated  bishops,  Egan,  Cheverus,  and 
Flaget,  gathered  in  Baltimore  around  Carroll,  the  patriarch 
of  the  American  church,  and  started  thence  for  Phila- 
delphia, Boston,  and  Bardstown  to  begin  the  glorious 
conquest  we  are  narrating. 

Gregory  XVI.  erected  the  see  of  Detroit,  detaching  it 
from  Cincinnati,  by  bull  of  March  8,  1833.  It  embraced 
the  State  of  Michigan  and  the  territory  extending  north- 
ward to  the  boundary-line  between  the  United  States  and 
the  British  territory  and  westward  to  the  Mississippi  River. 
It  was  classic  ground  for  the  church;  it  had  been  the 
theater  of  the  early  Jesuit  missions.  The  bishop  elect  was 
the  Rev.  Frederic  Rese,  a  native  of  Hanover,  Germany, 
who  was  consecrated  in  Cincinnati  October  3,  1833.  The 
faithful  in  this  diocese  were  mainly  of  French  origin,  few 


DIOCESE   OF  DETROIT.  393 

persons  of  other  nationalities  having  as  yet  settled  there. 
Within  the  Hmits  of  his  diocese  were  fourteen  priests,  scat- 
tered from  Detroit  to  Green  Bay.  It  was  a  noble  field  of 
work,  soon  to  become  the  most  flourishing  portion  of  our 
Northwestern  States.  But  Bishop  Rese  was  a  failure  from 
the  start;  he  was  arbitrary,  quick,  and  impulsive.  Seri- 
ously affected  in  health  and  completely  discouraged,  he 
resolved  to  resign.  Leaving  the  diocese  in  charge  of 
Very  Rev.  S.  T.  Badin  and  Very  Rev.  John  de  Bruyn  as 
his  vicars  general,  he  left  Detroit  early  in  1837. 

He  was  in  Baltimore  at  the  time  of  the  Third  Provincial 
Council.  He  did  not  attend  its  sessions,  but  from  St. 
Mary's  Seminary  he  addressed  to  the  assembled  fathers  a 
letter  in  which,  after  declaring  that  he  had  accepted  the 
episcopate  reluctantly,  had  learned  by  experience  that  it 
was-  a  burden  beyond  his  strength,  and  had  frequently 
entertained  the  intention  of  resigning,  or  at  least  of  solic- 
iting a  coadjutor,  he  stated  that  he  now  desired  to  do  so, 
having  left  his  diocese  in  charge  of  two  vicars  general. 
The  fathers  of  the  council  yielded  to  his  wish,  and  addressed 
a  letter  to  the  sovereign  pontiff  advising  that  the  resigna- 
tion be  accepted  and  proposing  the  names  of  clergymen 
worthy  to  succeed  him.  Dr.  Rese  was  summoned  to 
Rome,  where  he  was  known  and  esteemed.  He  reached 
that  city  in  very  feeble  health,  and  it  was  soon  found  that 
softening  of  the  brain  had  set  in.  The  Pope  therefore 
decided  to  appoint  a  coadjutor  and  administrator. 

The  choice  fell  on  the  Rev.  Peter  Paul  Lefevre,  who 
was  consecrated  in  Philadelphia  November  21,  1841.  He 
made  an  extended  visitation  of  his  diocese  in  1842,  and 
found  the  temporal  affairs  greatly  confused ;  and  to 
add  to  his  sorrows  turbulent  men  gave  him  so  much 
trouble  in  Detroit  that  he  threatened  to  withdraw  from 
the  old  French  Church  of  St.  Ann.     The  diocese  in  1843 


394  ^'^^^''  i<OMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

contained  St.  Ann's  Cathedral,  Holy  Trinity  Church  in 
Detroit,  twenty-three  churches  and  chapels  in  the  rest  of 
the  diocese,  sixteen  priests,  ten  schools,  and  two  charitable 
institutions.  The  Catholic  population  was  estimated  at 
twenty-five  thousand.  Immigration  was  only  beginning 
to  reach  Michigan.  The  diocese  was  vast  and  somewhat 
vague  in  its  western  limits,  since  Prairie  du  Chien,  La 
Pointe,  Sinsanawa  Mound,  Wis.,  and  St.  Paul's  Chapel, 
near  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  Minnesota,  were  all  re- 
garded as  being  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Detroit.  By 
the  erection  of  the  sees  of  Dubuque  and  Milwaukee,  in 
1849,  the  diocese  of  Detroit  was  limited  to  the  State  of 
Michigan.  Thus  reduced  it  contained  twelve  churches — 
ten  more  in  course  of  erection — fifteen  priests,  as  many 
schools,  and  a  Catholic  population  of  twenty-five  thousand. 
To  the  gratification  of  Bishop  Lefevre  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul  was  completed  in  1848  and  consecrated 
by  Archbishop  Eccleston,  who  came  from  Baltimore  to 
honor  the  old  French  town  of  the  Straits. 

After  that  year  the  general  progress  of  the  diocese  was 
remarkable  and  felt  the  impetus  of  the  great  wave  of 
Western  immigration.  In  1852  it  had  forty  churches 
completed  and  thirteen  in  process  of  building,  thirty- two 
priests,  two  academies,  twenty-four  schools,  and  eighty- 
five  thousand  Catholics. 

It  was  in  1834  that  the  diocese  of  Vincennes,  containing 
Indiana  and  eastern  Illinois,  was  detached  from  the  diocese 
of  Bardstown.  The  bishop  chosen  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  and  saintly  priests  in  the  country,  Simon  William 
Gabriel  Brute  de  Remur,  a  native  of  France,  a  descendant 
of  a  noble  family,  a  graduate  of  the  Polytechnic  School  of 
Paris,  a  schoolmate,  friend,  and  correspondent  of  the 
famous   Lamennais.      He   accompanied   Bishop   Flaget   to 


BISHOP  BRUT&.  395 

the  United  States  in  1808,  and  thenceforward  labored  as 
a  missionary  in  Maryland,  as  a  professor  in  Mount  St. 
Mary's  Seminary,  and  as  president  of  St.  Mary's  College, 
Baltimore.  He  was  consecrated  in  St.  Louis  October  28, 
1834.  The  cathedral  he  found  in  Vincennes  was  a  "  plain 
brick  building,  one  hundred  and  fifteen  feet  long  and  sixty 
feet  broad,  consisting  of  four  walls  and  the  roof,  unplas- 
tered,  and  destitute  even  of  a  place  for  preserving  the 
vestments  and  the  sacred  vessels."  The  Catholic  popu- 
lation of  Vincennes  was  poor,  generally  ignorant,  and  re- 
quiring much  instruction  and  rousing.  He  found  that 
the  pew-rents  and  subscriptions  would  amount  in  all  to 
about  three  hundred  dollars  a  year — enough  for  a  self- 
denying  missionary,  hardly  enough  for  the  expenses  of  a 
bishop  and  the  constant  calls  that  he  might  expect. 

To  form  a  definite  idea  of  the  scattered  congregations 
in  Indiana  and  Illinois  he  set  out  to  visit  his  diocese.  He 
found  small  congregations  at  Washington,  Box's  Creek, 
Riviere-au-Chat,  Columbus,  and  Shelbyville.  In  Chicago 
there  were  about  four  hundred  Catholics.  At  Paris, 
Edgar  County,  111.,  he  found  some  Catholics,  at  Fort 
Wayne  six  or  seven  hundred,  along  the  canal  about  two 
thousand.  A  few  families  were  in  La  Porte,  Michigan 
City,  Logansport,  and  Terre  Haute ;  and  at  Desselles  there 
was  a  village  of  six  hundred  and  fifty  Catholic  Indians. 
For  this  widely  scattered  flock  Bishop  Brute  had  only  a 
few  priests,  who,  like  Father  St.  Cyr,  residing  in  Chicago, 
belonged  to  other  dioceses.  Practically  he  was  without  a 
clergy  and  without  financial  means  either  to  educate  priests 
or  to  import  them  from  abroad.  He  resolved  to  make  an 
appeal  to  Europe,  and  left  in  July,  1835. 

Cheered  and  encouraged  by  his  reception  in  Austria, 
Rome,  and  France,  he  returned  to  America,  landing  in 
New  York  July   20,  1836,  and   reaching  his   cathedral   a 


396  The  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  XXIV. 

month  later.  By  the  aid  given  him  he  estabHshed  a 
diocesan  seminary,  an  orphan  asylum,  and  a  free  school  at 
Vincennes,  completed  the  so-called  cathedral,  and  aided 
in  erecting  several  small  churches.  But  he  brought  back 
what  was  more  important  than  money — nineteen  priests 
and  seminarians,  many  of  them  Bretons,  resolute,  hardy, 
full  of  faith  and  zeal.  The  priests  were  soon  stationed  at 
the  points  of  greatest  need,  and  the  bishop,  resuming  his 
old  life  of  professor,  undertook  the  training  of  the  semi- 
narians in  ecclesiastical  learning  and  especially  in  that  spirit 
of  piety  and  self-sacrifice  which  he  could  so  well  inspire. 
They,  too,  gradually  entered  into  the  field  of  labor.  The 
whole  Western  country  awakened  to  a  new  religious  life, 
and  the  apostolic  bishop,  by  his  personal  visitations  as  well 
as  by  his  councils  and  virtues,  kept  that  life  constantly 
vigorous  and  growing. 

Amid  the  labors  and  hardships  of  his  charge  his  health 
began  to  give  way ;  but  the  strong  will  prevailed  long 
after  the  body  had  grown  feeble.  Shortly  before  his 
death,  while  in  a  distant  part  of  his  diocese,  he  actually 
fainted  on  his  way  to  the  bedside  of  a  patient.  On  Trin- 
ity Sunday,  1839,  he  celebrated  the  thirty-first  anniversary 
of  his  first  mass,  being  assisted  on  that  occasion  by  two  of 
his  clergy,  who  supported  him  at  the  altar.  When  he 
was  at  last  compelled  to  take  to  his  bed  he  continued  to 
be  the  missionary  by  his  devotion,  his  humility,  and  his 
patience.  On  the  26th  of  June  he  surrendered  his  saintly 
soul  into  the  hands  of  his  Creator.  Blessed  is  the  land 
that  has  such  patriarchs  in  its  origin  as  Flaget,  David,  and 
Brute.  Their  names  are  held  in  honor,  their  memories  are 
an  inspiration. 

The  successor  of  Brute  was  the  Rt.  Rev.  Celestine  Rene 
Lawrence  Guynemer  de  la  Hailandiere,  a  native  of  France, 
Vicar  General  of  Vincennes  at  the  time  of  the  venerable 


DIOCESE  OF    VINCENNES.  397 

bishop's  death.  He  was  consecrated  in  Paris  August  18, 
1839.  In  a  letter  to  the  Propaganda  (1841)  he  estimated 
the  population  of  his  diocese  to  be  twenty-five  thousand 
to  thirty-five  thousand,  attended  by  thirty-three  priests. 
Undoubtedly  the  great  glory  of  Bishop  de  la  Hailandiere's 
administration  was  the  foundation,  on  the  26th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1842,  by  a  young  member  of  the  Brothers  of  the 
Holy  Cross,  the  Rev.  Edward  Sorin,  of  the  institution 
now  known  as  the  University  of  Notre  Dame,  Indiana. 
Though  active  to  an  extreme  degree,  no  less  than  Brute, 
unlike  Brute,  Bishop  de  la  Hailandiere  lacked  a  quality 
as  essential  as  energy — prudence.  He  managed  to  excite 
among  priests  and  people  such  an  opposition  that  in  the 
autumn  of  1845  ^"^^  was  compelled  to  go  to  Rome  to  offer 
his  resignation.  It  was  not  at  once  accepted ;  but  having 
induced  the  other  members  of  the  hierarchy  in  the  United 
States  to  confirm  his  request,  he  was  relieved  of  his  charge 
in  the  summer  of  1847. 

The  clergyman  chosen  to  be  his  successor  was  the  Rev. 
John  Stephen  Bazin,  a  native  of  France,  Vicar  General 
of  Mobile,  who  was  consecrated  in  that  city  October  24, 

1847.  He  was  but  installed  in  his  see  when  he  was 
seized  with  a  disease  that  carried  him  off  in  the  spring  of 

1848.  The  vicar  general,  Very  Rev.  J.  M.  Maurice  de 
St.  Palais,  of  an  ancient  and  noble  French  family,  was  con- 
secrated his  successor  January  14,  1849.  The  energy  of 
which  he  was  known  to  be  possessed,  and  which  he  dis- 
played in  the  visitation  of  his  diocese  immediately  after 
his  consecration,  infused  into  all  a  new  spirit  of  hearty 
activity.  He  found  under  his  jurisdiction  thirty-fi\'e 
priests  attending  to  thirty  thousand  Catholics.  He  visited 
Europe  in  1849,  made  his  way  to  the  great  Benedictine 
Abbey  of  Einsiedeln,  and  induced  the  abbot  to  send  him 
a  colony  of  the  monks  of  his  ancient  order. 


398  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

As  constituted  by  the  bull  erecting  it  (April  23,  1847), 
the  diocese  of  Cleveland  embraced  about  the  third  of 
the  State  of  Ohio  that  lies  north  of  the  parallel,  of  latitude 
40°  41'.  Pope  Pius  IX.  chose  for  bishop  of  the  new  see 
the  Rev.  Amadeus  Rappe,  a  native  of  France,  whose 
piety,  zeal,  and  energy  as  a  missionary  priest  in  Toledo 
proved  him  worthy  and  able  to  organize  a  new  diocese. 
He  was  consecrated  in  Cincinnati  August,  1847.  He 
took  possession,  within  a  week  after  his  consecration,  of  the 
only  church  in  Cleveland,  St.  Mary's  on  the  Flats,  too 
small  for  the  combined  English  and  German  speaking 
Catholics,  whose  numbers  had  increased  to  nearly  four 
thousand.  Besides  this  procathedral  the  diocese  contained 
forty-two  churches,  attended  by  twenty  priests.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1849,  he  went  to  Europe,  where  he  received 
generous  assistance  and  secured  several  priests  and  semi- 
narians and  a  colony  of  Ursuline  nuns,  for  whom  the  resi- 
dence of  Judge  Cowles,  on  Euclid  Avenue,  was  purchased. 
Bishop  Rappe  came  back  to  his  see  in  August,  1850,  full 
of  courage  and  hope.  The  future  was  most  promising  for 
Ohio,  the  prospects  for  the  church  were  bright.  At  this 
time  Father  Mathew,  the  great  apostle  of  temperance, 
was  in  the  United  States.  Bishop  Rappe  wrote  a  stirring 
pastoral  in  favor  of  temperance,  and  invited  Father 
Mathew  to  preach  and  lecture  on  the  subject  in  Cleveland. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Father  Mathew's  visit  to  this 
country  did  not  produce  the  good  that  was  expected  and 
should  have  come  of  it.  He  was  accused  by  his  country- 
men and  co-religionists  of  having  allowed  himself  to  be 
entrapped  by  a  committee  of  fanatics  and  having  appeared 
in  public  in  a  way  that  shocked  Catholics  by  his  seeming  to 
take  part  in  Protestant  services.  This  apparent  departure 
from  Catholic  discipline  (surely  Bishop  England's  example 
was  forgotten)  made  the  bishops  hold  aloof  from  his  move- 


DIOCESE    OF  NEW  ORLEANS.  399 

ment.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  Bishop  Rappe  that  he  stood 
by  the  great  apostle  of  temperance.  We  have  made 
progress  in  our  ideas  about  great  social  movements  since 
then  ;  we  realize  that  preaching  temperance  even  in  Prot- 
estant churches  is  not  taking  part  in  Protestant  religious 
services. 

When  Bishop  Rappe  was  summoned  to  the  Plenary 
Council  in  1852  the  new  diocese  of  Cleveland  could  show 
a  creditable  progress:  fifty-five  churches  and  chapels  built 
or  in  course  of  construction,  forty-two  priests,  and  a  Cath- 
olic population  estimated  at  thirty  thousand. 

After  the  resignation  of  Bishop  Du  Bpurg  the  Rt.  Rev. 
Joseph  Rosati,  Bishop  of  St.  Louis,  was  transferred  by  the 
holy  see  to  New  Orleans;  but  on  his  representations  the 
transfer  was  not  eiTected  and  he  was  allowed  to  remain  in 
St.  Louis.  The  Rev.  Leo  Raymond  de  Neckere,  a  native 
of  Belgium  and  a  well-known  missionary  in  Louisiana,  was 
chosen  for  the  vacant  see  of  New  Orleans  and  consecrated 
in  the  cathedral  of  that  city  May  16,  1830.  He  lacked 
one  of  the  most  necessary  qualities  for  a  bishop  in  those 
early  times,  bodily  health,  and  was  unable  to  endure  the 
hardships  of  episcopal  visitations.  He  did  what  good  he 
could  from  his  home  in  the  city  by  the  example  of  his 
virtues  and  by  his  wise  legislation  for  the  clergy.  The  year 
was  one  of  cholera  and  yellow  fever.  Priests  and  Sisters 
of  Charity  gave  their  lives  heroically  in  the  service  of  the 
sick;  the  bishop  himself  was  carried  off  by  the  fever  on 
the  5th  of  September,  1833. 

The  Rev.  Anthony  Blanc,  a  native  of  France  and  vicar 
general  of  the  diocese,  was  consecrated  its  bishop  Novem- 
ber 22,  1835.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  had  trusteeism  done 
so  much  harm  to  religion  in  the  beginning  of  the  century 
as  in  New  Orleans.  Since  the  death  of  Sedella,  its  leader, 
this  uncatholic  system  of  church  administration  had  been 


400  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

quiescent;  but  under  Bishop  Blanc  it  awoke  to  life  and 
made  a  last  desperate  effort  for  supremacy.  In  1842  the 
trustees  of  the  cathedral  refused  to  recognize  a  clergyman 
appointed  as  pastor  by  the  bishop,  and  in  justification  of 
their  action  they  claimed  the  right  of  patronage  formerly 
enjoyed  by  the  king  of  Spain.  Presenting  a  petition  full 
of  misstatements,  they  brought  suit  against  the  Bishop 
of  New  Orleans  in  the  parish  court  of  the  city.  Their 
only  real  title  to  the  property  was  based  on  the  forcible 
seizure  of  the  church  in  the  yfear  1805.  The  right  of 
patronage  had  never  been  transferred  to  them  by  the 
Spanish  monarch,  and  could  not  be  conferred  by  either 
the  federal  or  the  State  government.  Judge  Maurian 
decided  against  the  trustees.  They  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  confirmed  the  decision  of  the  parish 
court.  Judge  Bullard  declared :  "  The  right  to  nominate 
a  curate  [parish  priest],  or  \\\Q.jus patronahis  of  the  Spanish 
law,  is  abrogated  in  this  State.  The  wardens  .  .  .  can- 
not compel  the  bishop  to  institute  a  curate  [parish  priest] 
of  their  appointment,  nor  is  he,  in  any  legal  sense,  subor- 
dinate to  the  wardens  of  any  one  of  the  churches  within 
his  diocese  in  relation  to  his  clerical  functions."  A  rehear- 
ing, claimed  by  the  wardens,  was  refused.  The  Supreme 
Court  thus  upheld  the  decision  given  by  the  holy  see  in 
the  case  of  Philadelphia. 

Of  the  progress  of  the  church  in  Louisiana  during  this 
period  we  find  but  one  item :  in  1844  there  were  fifty-four 
priests  in  the  diocese ;  this  number  may  be  taken  as  indi- 
cating a  Catholic  population  of  seventy-five  or  one  hundred 
thousand.  Yielding  to  the  wishes  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Seventh  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore,  Pope  Pius  IX.,  on 
the  19th  of  July,  1850,  made  New  Orleans  a  metropolitan 
see  and  promoted  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Blanc  to  the  archiepiscopal 
dignity.    The  province  of  New  Orleans  embraced  the  arch- 


DIOCESE    OF  MOBILE.  4OI 

bishop's  diocese,  with  the  suffragan  dioceses  of  Mobile, 
Natchez,  Little  Rock,  and  Galveston.  The  pallium,  which 
is  the  symbol  of  archiepiscopal  jurisdiction,  was  conferred 
on  the  archbishop  elect  on  the  i6th  of  February,  1851,  by 
the  venerable  Bishop  Portier,  of  Mobile. 

The  see  of  Mobile,  made  suffragan  to  New  Orleans  in 
1850,  dated  in  a  certain  sense  from  the  year  1826,  when 
Bishop  Portier  was  nameci  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Alabama, 
with  residence  in  Mobile.  From  his  voyage  to  Europe  in 
1829  he  returned  with  two  priests,  four  subdeacons,  and 
two  clerics.  With  these  recruits  not  only  was  he  able  to 
provide  the  scattered  flock  in  Alabama  with  the  ministra- 
tions of  the  church,  but  he  also  laid  the  beginnings  of 
Spring  Hill  College,  that  since  then  has  become  famous. 
St.  Augustine,  Fla.,  was  under  the  care  of  a  good  priest. 
Rev.  E.  F.  Mayne,  whom  Bishop  England  had  sent  there 
at  the  request  of  Dr.  Portier.  The  trustees  of  the  church 
in  the  ancient  Catholic  city  drove  their  pastor  from  the 
sacred  edifice  in  May,  1830,  and  when  the  case  came  be- 
fore the  court  Judge  Smith  decided  that  the  right  of  pres- 
entation vested  in  the  congregation  and  not  in  the  bish- 
op, and  that  the  treaty  ceding  Florida  transferred  to  the 
congregation,  through  the  United  States  government,  all 
the  rights  which  the  king  of  Spain  had  possessed.  This 
strange  ruling  was  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  rulings 
made  in  like  cases  by  the  other  States  of  the  Union.  The 
States  in  the  diocese  of  Mobile — Alabama  and  Florida — 
gained  very  slowly  by  immigration;  in  1850  the  Catholic 
body  was  estimated  at  ten  thousand.  Having  met  the 
most  pressing  wants  of  his  flock,  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Portier 
could  only  await  what  did  not  come,  an  increase  of 
numbers. 

The  see  of  Natchez,  made  suffragan  to  New  Orleans  in 
1850,    had  been   erected  July   28,  1837,  by   his   Holiness 


402  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

Pope  Gregory  XVI.,  at  the  instance  of  the  Provincial 
Council  of  Baltimore,  with  -the  State  of  Mississippi  as  a 
diocese.  The  clergyman  first  proposed  for  the  new  see, 
Very  Rev.  Thomas  Heyden,  after  some  hesitation  declined 
the  miter,  and  it  was  not  till  December  15,  1840,  that  the 
Rev.  John  Joseph  Chanche,  president  of  St.  Mary's  Col- 
lege, Baltimore,  was  selected  and  accepted  the  bulls.  He 
was  consecrated  in  the  cathedral  of  Baltimore  March  14, 
1 84 1,  by  Archbishop  Eccleston,  assisted  by  Bishops  Fen- 
wick  of  Boston  and  Hughes  of  New  York.  John  Joseph 
Chanche  was  born  in  Baltimore  October  4,  1795,  his  par- 
ents having  fled  from  the  horrors  of  the  negro  insurrection 
in  St.  Domingo.  Educated  by  the  Sulpitians  in  Baltimore, 
he  became  a  member  of  that  order,  was  made  a  professor 
in  the  seminary,  and  in  1834  succeeded  Rev.  S.  Eccleston, 
the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore,  as  president  of  the  college. 

Nearly  the  whole  State  of  Missi.?sippi  was  originally  in- 
cluded in  the  diocese  of  Baltimore,  although  it  was  not  till 
1 796  that  Bishop  Carroll  obtained  control  of  Natchez.  It 
was  made  a  vicariate  apostolic  and  placed  under  the  Bishop 
of  New  Orleans  in  1825.  This  State  had  been  the  scene 
of  French  occupation  in  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  of  the  labors  of  missionaries  from  the  seminary 
of  Quebec  and  later  of  the  Jesuit  fathers.  Under  the 
French  rule  there  was  generally  a  priest  at  Natchez ;  and 
under  the  Spanish  rule  there  was  a  chapel,  if  not  a  resident 
priest,  at  Villa  Gayoso.  After  the  vicariate  apostolic  of 
Mississippi  was  erected,  Bishop  Du  Bourg  exerted  himself 
to  meet  to  some  extent  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  faithful 
there,  and  the  Catholics  of  Natchez  were  occasionally 
visited  by  a  clergyman  from  New  Orleans  until  the  diocese 
of  Natchez  was  erected. 

Bishop  Chanche  reached  his  episcopal  city  on  the  i8th 
of  May,   1843,   and,   after  ascertaining  the  needs  of  the 


NATCHEZ  AND  LITTLE  ROCK.  403 

diocese,  visited  the  Northern  States  to  sohcit  aid  for  the 
district  committed  to  his  care.  Bishop  Chanche  returned 
encouraged  by  the  Hberahty  he  had  met;  so  much,  indeed, 
that  in  February,  1848,  he  laid  the  foundation-stone  of 
a  Gothic  cathedral  sixty  feet  wide  and  one  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  long.  The  organization  of  the  diocese  of 
Natchez  was  a  slow  and  difficult  task.  Although  some 
points,  like  Biloxi  and  Natchez,  were  comparatively 
ancient  settlements  where  churches  once  existed,  the 
Catholic  population  had  disappeared,  leaving  scarcely  a 
vestige  of  religion.  Being  a  slave  State,  Mississippi 
offered  small  inducements  to  immigrants,  and  the  few  who 
did  come  scattered  far  and  wide.  Writing  in  1845,  Bishop 
Chanche  declared  that  when  he  took  possession  of  his  see 
he  had  not  a  single  church  or  institution.  After  providing 
as  well  as  he  could  for  the  little  Catholic  flock  at  Natchez, 
he  planned  churches  at*  Biloxi,  Pass  Christian,  and  Yazoo. 
Hard  as  he  had  labored,  yet  he  could  show  in  1848  only 
five  priests  and  six  poor  churches  as  the  result.  A  journey 
to  Europe  procured  for  this  derelict  diocese  a  half-dozen 
generous  missionaries,  who  in  their  apostolic  trips  through- 
out the  State  unearthed  more  Catholics  than  any  one  had 
ever  supposed  were  there. 

Though  an  offshoot  of  the  diocese  of  St.  Louis,  Little 
Rock  was  made  a  suffragan  of  New  Orleans  in  1850.  On 
petition  of  the  Council  of  Baltimore  (1843)  the  State  of 
Arkansas  was  detached  from  St.  Louis  and  erected  into  a 
diocese,  with  the  see  at  Little  Rock.  The  Rev.  Andrew 
Byrne,  elected  for  the  new  diocese,  was  consecrated  in 
New  York  March  10,  1844.  Arkansas,  like  Mississippi, 
had  been  the  scene  of  early  explorations  and  missions 
under  the  French  and  Spanish  rules.  The  French  fron- 
tiersmen, however,  were  not  models  of  attachment  to  the 
faith  or  the  practice  of  their  religion.      A  chapel  erected 


404  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai'.  xxiv. 

at  Arkansas  Post  was  attended  at  intervals,  but  neither 
under  French  nor  Spanish  rule  did  it  ever  possess 
a  zealous  or  growing  congregation.  After  Bishop  Du 
Bourg  was  appointed  to  the  see  of  New  Orleans,  attempts 
were  made  to  revive  the  faith  among  the  scattered  Catho- 
lics in  Arkansas,  and  the  missions  were  renewed  by  Bishop 
Rosati ;  but  the  prevailing  ignorance  and  vice  were  deplor- 
able and  almost  insurmountable.  Being  a  slave  State, 
with  no  inducement  to  immigration,  Arkansas  attracted 
but  few  Catholics  from  Europe  or  the  Eastern  States. 

After  proceeding  to  his  diocese  and  searching  for  Cath- 
olics throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  State, 
Bishop  Byrne  wrote :  "  I  can  assure  you  that  within  the 
whole  diocese  of  Little  Rock  there  exist  no  means  to  erect 
a  single  altar.  The  Catholic  population  does  not  exceed 
seven  hundred  souls,  and  they  are  scattered  in  every 
county  in  the  State."  There  were  not  at  any  one  point 
Catholics  enough  to  erect  a  church  or  maintain  a  priest. 
In  fact,  the  diocese  had  but  a  single  priest  and  two 
churches,  loaded  with  heavy  debts.  Bishop  Byrne  ap- 
pealed to  the  missionary  societies  of  Europe  and  obtained 
some  aid  from  them.  He  was  also  assisted  by  his  friends 
among  the  clergy  and  laity  of  New  York.  He  was  thus 
enabled  to  obtain  a  site  in  Little  Rock  to  build  a  church. 
"You  may  judge  of  my  position,"  he  uTote,  "when  I 
state  that  since  I  came  to  Arkansas  I  have  received  only 
twenty  dollars  toward  my  support.  I  have  expended  the 
money  from  Europe  in  purchasing  lots  and  building  a  few 
small  churches."  Yet  he  did  not  give  up,  disheartening 
as  the  prospect  was.  He  kept  on  at  his  work  with  a  zeal 
worthy  of  a  larger  and  more  conspicuous  field.  At  the 
beginning  of  1852  the  diocese  had  ten  clergymen,  eight 
churches,  and  two  chapels ;  but  the  Catholic  population 
was  not  estimated  at  more  than  one  thousand. 


RELIGIOUS   CONDITION  OF   TEXAS.  405 

In  the  first  part  of  this  work  we  have  studied  the  rise 
and  decHne  of  the  missions  of  Texas.  The  territory  that 
went  by  that  name  had  originally  been  part  of  the  Spanish 
possessions  in  America.  In  1821  Mexico  broke  away 
from  Spain  and  declared  its  independence;  in  1824  it 
adopted  a  federal  form  of  government,  of  which  a  State 
composed  of  the  former  provinces  of  Coahuila  and  Texas 
became  a  constituent  member.  But  presently  immigration 
transformed  Texas  from  a  Spanish  into  an  American  com- 
munity. By  the  year  1833  the  Americans  had  become 
so  numerous  that  they  made  bold  to  take  matters  into 
their  own  hands  and  form  a  new  constitution  after  their 
own  pattern.  In  1836  Texas  seceded  from  Mexico,  and 
eight  hundred  Texans  assured  their  secession  and  their 
independence  by  the  battle  and  victory  of  San  Jacinto 
(April  21,  1836),  won  by  General  Sam  Houston  against 
the  Mexican  President,  Santa  Anna.  Texas  then  set 
up  for  an  independent  republic,  and  was  recognized  as 
such  by  the  United  States,  England,  France,  and  Belgium. 
It  was  only  a  question  of  time,  however,  w^hen  it  should 
enter  into  the  Union ;  it  was  annexed  by  Congress  March 

3,  1845- 

We  may  well  fancy  that  the  missions  of  Texas,  and 
consequently  religion,  had  fallen  into  a  sad  condition, 
especially  after  the  secession  of  Mexico  from  Spain  and 
the  influx  of  American  immigrants.  When  the  wretched 
state  of  religion  in  Texas  became  known  to  Pope  Gregory 
XVI.,  a  letter  was  addressed  from  Rome  to  the  Bishop  of 
New  Orleans  requesting  him  to  send  a  capable  priest  to 
examine  and  report  on  the  actual  situation.  Bishop  Blanc 
selected  Very  Rev.  John  Timon,  Visitor  of  the  Congrega- 
tion of  the  Mission,  to  undertake  the  task.  When  his 
statement  reached  Rome,  the  sovereign  pontiff,  by  the 
advice  of  the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide,  resolved 


4o6  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiv. 

to  establish  a  distinct  jurisdiction  in  Texas.  Documents 
were  forwarded  appointing"  Very  Rev.  John  Timon  prefect 
apostoHc  and  investing  him  with  power  to  administer  con- 
firmation. Father  Timon  accepted  the  charge  and  at 
once  sent  to  Texas  one  of  his  fellow-religious,  the  Rev. 
John  M.  Odin,  as  vice-prefect.  After  a  journey  through 
the  territory.  Father  Odin  estimated  the  Catholics  in 
Texas  at  ten  thousand.  In  December  the  prefect  him- 
self, Father  Timon,  arrived  in  Austin  and  presented  to 
President  Lamar  letters  from  Cardinal  Fransoni,  Prefect 
of  the  Propaganda,  officially  recognizing  the  new  republic 
in  the  Pope's  name.  The  Congress,  by  a  special  act, 
confirmed  to  the  chief  pastor  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  the  republic  of  Texas  the  churches  of  Nacogdo- 
ches, San  Antonio,  Goliad,  Victoria,  Concepcion,  San  Jose, 
San  Juan,  Espada,  Refugio,  and  the  Alamo,  with  the 
contiguous  grounds,  not  to  exceed  fifteen  acres.  The 
prefect  and  vice-prefect  then  traversed  the  country  to 
ascertain  where  the  Catholics  could  be  most  easily  gathered 
into  congregations.  Meanwhile  Rome,  having  by  this 
time  received  fuller  information  of  the  condition  of  the 
church  in  Texas,  concluded  that  a  prefecture  was  a  less 
honor  than  the  republic  deserved.  A  bull  erecting  the 
republic  of  Texas  into  a  vicariate  apostolic  was  issued  by 
Pope  Gregory  XVI.  on  the  i6th  of  July.  1841,  and  the 
Rt.  Rev.  John  M.  Odin,  CM.,  was  appointed  to  the  newly 
constituted  vicariate,  with  the  title  of  Bishop  of  Claudi- 
opolis,  /';/  partibus  infideliuni. 

In  his  mission  tours  through  Texas  Bishop  Odin  found 
many  Catholics  who  had  not  seen  a  priest  since  they  had 
left  their  European  homes.  The  field  was  immense,  the 
laborers  few.  He  went  to  Europe  for  aid,  and  returned 
in  the  spring  of  1846  with  some  priests  and  seminarians. 
Meanwhile   (March   3,    1845)  Texas  became  part  of   the 


TEXAS  ANNEXED.  407 

United  States,  and  war  with  Mexico  followed.  Naturally 
immigration  into  Texas  stopped  during  the  conflict,  and 
the  priests  and  sisters  had  much  work  to  do  in  camp  and 
hospital.  After  the  war,  ended  by  the  Treaty  of  Guada- 
lupe Hidalgo  (February  2,  1848),  prosperity  returned  to 
Texas.  Before  proceeding  to  the  Plenary  Council  of 
Baltimore  (1852),  Bishop  Odin  had  in  the  diocese  seven- 
teen priests  and  twenty  churches. 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

THE    PROVINCE    OF   ST.   LOUIS   AND   THE   PACIFIC   COAST 

(1829-52). 

As  early  as  1830  Bishop  Rosati  set  about  erecting  a 
cathedral  worthy  of  his  growing  diocese,  but,  owing  to  the 
difficulties  which  environed  him,  it  was  not  completed  till 
1834.  It  was  regarded  as  a  remarkable  piece  of  architec- 
ture at  the  time.  This  building  still  bears  the  name  of 
cathedral  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  and  does  service  as  such. 
It  is  venerable  by  many  a  grand  ceremonial  performed 
in  it  since  the  day  of  its  consecration.  In  1838  Bishop 
Rosati  could  report  nine  stone  churches,  ten  of  brick, 
twenty-five  of  wood,  attended  by  twenty-four  Jesuits, 
twenty  Lazarists,  one  Dominican,  and  twenty-three  secu- 
lar priests.  He  solicited  from  the  holy  see  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  coadjutor,  and  proposed  for  the  office  Rev. 
Peter  Richard  Kenrick.  It  was  not,  however,  till  he 
visited  Rome  in  1840,  after  attending  the  Fourth  Council 
of  Baltimore,  that  he  obtained  the  appointment  of  that 
learned  clergyman  as  Bishop  of  Drasis,  in  partibiis  iufi- 
delinj)i,  and  Coadjutor  of  St.  Louis.  The  coadjutor  was 
needed,  for  the  sovereign  pontiff  laid  a  new  burden  on 
the  shoulders  of  Bishop  Rosati  by  charging  him  with  an 
important  mission  to  Llayti.  On  his  return  from  Rome 
to  the  United  States  he  consecrated  his  coadjutor  in  St. 
Mary's  Church,  Philadelphia,  and  then  prepared  to  sail  to 

Hayti  to  fulfill  the  duties  imposed  upon  him.      His  depart- 

408 


DIOCESE   OF  ST.  LOUIS.  409 

ure  from  St.  Louis  (April  25,  1840)  was  really  a  last 
farewell  to  his  diocese.  After  successfully  arranging  with 
President  Boyer,  of  Hayti,  the  terms  of  a  concordat,  and 
administering  confirmation  to  hundreds,  he  hastened  back 
to  Rome.  His  report  gave  great  satisfaction,  and  he  was 
deputed  to  return  to  the  island  and  consummate  the  pro- 
posed arrangements.  At  Paris  his  condition  became  so 
critical  that  he  was  obliged  to  go  back  to  Rome,  where  he 
died,  September  25,  1843,  honored  for  his  virtues,  piety, 
zeal,  learning,  and  the  ability  he  displayed  in  the  govern- 
ment of  his  diocese,  in  the  councils  of  the  church,  and  in 
delicate  negotiations  with  the  civil  powers. 

At  the  time  that  the  diocese  came  into  the  hands  of 
Bishop  Kenrick  the  city  of  St.  Louis  had  five  churches 
for  the  accommodation  of  sixteen  thousand  Catholics,  who 
were  attended  by  twenty-five  priests.  The  diocese  com- 
prised the  State  of  Missouri,  with  about  fifty  churches 
outside  the  episcopal  city,  the  western  part  of  Illinois,  with 
about  thirteen  churches,  Arkansas,  with  two,  and  Indian 
missions  among  the  Pottowatomies  and  the  Flatheads. 
The  Catholic  population  of  the  whole  diocese  was  estimated 
at  one  hundred  thousand.  But  its  limits — and  therefore 
the  number  of  its  clergy  and  laity — were  reduced  to  the 
State  of  Missouri  and  the  territory  west  of  Missouri  when 
the  sovereign  pontiff,  at  the  petition  of  the  Council  of 
Baltimore,  erected  (November,  1844)  the  sees  of  Chicago 
and  Little  Rock.  This  division  left  to  the  diocese  of  St. 
Louis  a  Catholic  population  of  fifty  thousand.  Bishop 
Kenrick  attended  the  Baltimore  Council  of  1846,  which 
solicited  the  erection  of  St.  Louis  to  an  archbishopric;  and 
on  the  8th  of  October  of  the  following  year  Pope  Pius 
IX.,  by  his  apostolic  brief  of  that  date,  raised  St.  Louis  to 
that  dignity.  At  the  petition  of  the  Seventh  Provincial 
Council  of  Baltimore,  which  Archbishop  Kenrick  attended 


410  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

in  1849,  the  Bishops  of  Dubuque,  Nashville,  Chicago, 
Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul  were  made  suffragans  of  the 
Archbishop  of  St.  Louis.  A  diocesan  synod  held  August 
25,  1850,  showed  the  number  of  priests  in  the  diocese  of 
St.  Louis  to  be  forty-three. 

The  State  of  Tennessee  had  been  included  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Bardstown  since  the  first  division  of  the  diocese  of 
Baltimore.  The  progress  of  the  faith  in  that  State  had 
been  slow ;  Catholics  were  few  and  widely  scattered.  Like 
North  Carolina,  from  which  it  sprang,  Tennessee  had  a 
population  that  had  not  come  in  contact  with  Catholicity 
and  was  little  disposed  to  welcome  the  church.  The  con- 
viction that  a  devoted  resident  bishop,  ready  to  endure 
trials  and  hardships,  could  ultimately  build  up  Catholicity 
there  led  to  the  erection  of  the  diocese  of  Nashville.  The 
establishment  of  that  see  was  recommended  by  the  Pro- 
vincial Council  of  Baltimore  in  April,  1837,  and  was 
decreed  by  the  bull  Universi  Dominici  Gregis,  of  Gregory 
XVL,  July  28,  1837.  The  arduous  duty  of  organizing 
and  directing  the  diocese  devolved  on  Father  Richard  Pius 
Miles,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  a  native  of  Maryland, 
born  in  Prince  George's  County  May  17,  1791.  He  was 
consecrated  in  the  cathedral  of  Bardstown  September  16, 
1838. 

The  city  of  Nashville  contained  at  that  time  about  one 
hundred  and  thirty  Catholics ;  Murfreesborough  had  but 
one  Catholic  family ;  in  the  neighborhood  of  Athens  there 
were  about  a  hundred  Catholics,  chiefly  men  employed 
in  building  a  railroad,  and  a  few  at  Fayetteville,  Mount 
Pleasant,  and  Columbia.  After  a  journey  of  four  hundred 
and  sixty  miles  on  horseback  in  search  of  Catholics,  the 
bishop  estimated  his  flock,  including  a  few  families  at 
Memphis  and  other  places  not  yet  visited,  at  not  much 
more  than  three  hundred ;  and  this  little  body  was  widely 


BISHOP  LOR  AS.  4  I  1 

scattered.  It  was  surely  a  poor  diocese,  with  slight  immi- 
gration, a  difficult  mountain  country,  and  a  population 
filled  with  strong  prejudices  against  the  church. 

On  the  28th  of  July,  1837,  was  erected  the  see  of 
Dubuque,  a  city  four  years  old.  The  new  diocese  con- 
tained within  its  jurisdiction  the  territory  north  of  the 
State  of  Missouri  lying  between  the  Mississippi  and  Mis- 
souri rivers ;  in  other  words,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  and  part  of 
the  two  Dakotas.  The  priest  selected  for  the  see  was 
Rev.  Mathias  Loras,  a  native  of  France  and  a  missionary 
for  some  years  in  the  diocese  of  Mobile,  in  which  city  he 
was  consecrated  December  10,  1837.  Within  his  vast 
diocese  there  was  one  priest  and  a  half-finished  church. 
At  once  he  went  to  France  for  auxiliaries  and  means.  In 
October,  1838,  Bishop  Loras  arrived  from  Havre  with  two 
priests  and  four  subdeacons,  the  nucleus  of  his  clergy. 
Meanwhile  Father  Mazzuchelli,  the  one  priest  in  the  dio- 
cese at  the  time  of  its  erection,  had  completed  a  resi- 
dence for  the  bishop,  who  reached  Dubuque  on  the 
1 8th  of  April,  1839,  and  was  duly  installed  on  the  third 
Sunday  after  Easter.  He  began  a  visitation  of  his  diocese, 
and  found  that  Davenport,  mainly  by  the  liberality  of  Mr. 
Anthony  Leclaire,  had  already  a  fine  brick  church  with 
a  schoolroom  attached  to  it,  and  that  in  Burlington  the 
Catholics  were  at  work  on  a  church.  The  town  of  St. 
Peter,  in  the  northern  part  of  his  diocese  (now  Mendota, 
Minn.),  next  claimed  his  attention  ;  there  he  was  welcomed 
by  nearly  two  hundred  Catholics.  At  Prairie  du  Chien 
he  found  seven  hundred,  and  started  a  church  which 
Father  Mazzuchelli  undertook  to  build.  Returning  to 
Dubuque,  he  dedicated  his  cathedral  under  the  patron- 
age of  St.  Raphael  the  Archangel,  on  the  2 2d  of  Augu.st, 
1839. 

In   1840  he  could  report  five  churches — his  cathedral, 


4  T  2  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

St.  Patrick's  in  Makoquata,  St.  Anthony's  in  Davenport, 
St.  Paul's  in  Burlington,  and  one  building  in  St.  Peter. 
After  another  year  there  was  a  brick  church  in  Iowa  City, 
a  German  church  in  West  Point,  and  Catholics  were  busy 
erecting  churches  in  Bloomington  and  Fort  Madison.  As 
Wisconsin  was  temporarily  placed  under  his  care,  he  v^isited 
that  territory,  establishing  a  mission  among  the  Menom- 
inees,  and  organizing  a  congregation  in  Milwaukee  that 
undertook  to  erect  a  church  on  some  lots  given  by  Solo- 
mon Juneau.  No  contrast  could  be  greater  than  that 
between  the  State  of  Alabama,  where  Bishop  Loras  had 
lived,  with  its  decayed  congregations  and  its  apathy,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  busy,  pushing,  active  Northwest  to 
which  he  was  now  come,  on  the  other,  with  immigration 
pouring  in,  largely  of  Catholics,  all  active,  stirring,  ener- 
getic, building  houses,  factories,  schools,  and  churches. 
But  Bishop  Loras  showed  himself  to  be  eminently  a  man 
of  work ;  he  was  in  his  element. 

As  he  was  himself  a  man  of  energy  and  apostolic  zeal, 
so  he  expected  the  priests  under  him  to  be.  His  solicitude 
extended  to  the  Indians  as  well  as  the  whites.  In  1842 
he  sent  Rev.  Remegius  Petiot  to  the  W^innebagos,  Rev. 
Mr.  Pelamourgues  to  the  Sacs  and  Foxes,  Rev.  Augustine 
Ravoux — who  still  lives  in  St.  Paul,  the  model  and  the  glory 
of  that  province — to  the  Sioux  above  the  Falls  of  St.  An- 
thony, the  scene  of  Hennepin's  adventures.  The  erection 
of  the  dioceses  of  Chicago  and  Milwaukee  relieved  Bishop 
Loras  of  the  district  east  of  the  Mississippi,  though  it  de- 
prived him  of  a  few  priests.  The  bishop's  great  struggle 
was  to  keep  pace  with  the  Catholic  immigration,  then 
pouring  in  a  steady  stream  all  over  Iowa;  and  though  by 
December,  1843,  ^e  saw  twelve  new  churches  erected,  yet 
as  many  more  were  needed.  New  settlements  were  con- 
stantly springing  into  existence  that  required  the  visits  of 


DIOCESE    OE   CHICAGO. 


413 


priest  and  bishop ;  there  was  no  rest  for  either.  But  fast 
as  was  the  pace  of  Western  immigration — and  Bishop 
Loras  never  ceased  to  encourage  it — the  increase  of 
churches  and  clergy  seemed  not  to  lag  behind.  The 
bishop  was  untiring,  ubiquitous,  and  withal  shrewd,  keen, 
and  far-seeing  in  securing  in  all  new  settlements  ground 
and  property  for  the  church.  It  is  on  the  foundations  he 
thus  laid  that  has  risen  the  greatness  of  the  province  of 
Dubuque. 

The  see  of  Chicago  was  erected  November  28,  1843. 
It  contained  the  State  of  Illinois.  This  was  classic  ground 
in  the  early  mission  period  for  the  voyageur  anci  the  mis- 
sionary. Chicago  then  was  the  point  where  converged  all 
the  lines  of  Indian  and  Canadian  explorations,  travels,  and 
commerce,  just  as  Chicago  now  is  the  hub  of  all  our  inland 
routes  of  trade.  In  1804  the  United  States  government 
established  at  Chicago  Fort  Dearborn.  Gradually  a  few 
whites  settled  there,  Ouilmette  and  Beaubien  being  among 
the  pioneers.  The  Rev.  Gabriel  Richard,  of  Detroit,  visited 
Chicago  in  1821  and  said  mass  in  Colonel  Beaubien's 
house.  He  also  preached  to  the  garrison  in  the  fort.  In 
1833  the  Catholics,  headed  by  Thomas  J.  B.  Owen  and 
J.  B.  Beaubien,  sent  a  petition  to  Bishop  Rosati  asking  him 
to  give  them  a  resident  priest.  The  Bishop  of  St.  Louis, 
acting  as  vicar  general  of  the  diocese  of  Bardstown,  under 
whose  jurisdiction  Illinois  was  at  the  time,  appointed  Rev. 
J.  M.  J.  St.  Cyr  to  the  charge  of  Chicago.  He  reached  his 
post,  and  said  mass  in  Mark  Beaubien's  house  May  5,  1833. 
The  next  year  a  lot  was  purchased  on  Lake  and  State 
streets,  and  a  little  church  twenty-five  by  thirty-five  feet 
was  erected.  Rev.  Mr.  St.  Cyr  was  recalled  in  1837; 
after  him  came  Revs.  Leander  Schaffer,  O'Meara,  and 
Maurice  de  St.  Palais,  who  opened  St.  Xavier's  Academy, 
and   soon  after  began  the  erection  of  a  brick  church  on 


4 1 4  THE   ROM  AX  CA  THOLICS,  [Chap.  xxv. 

Madison  Street  and  Wabash  Avenue  which  cost  four 
thousand  dollars. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
city  of  Chicago  when  Pope  Gregory  XVI.  made  that  city 
an  episcopal  see,  and  appointed  as  its  first  bishop  Rt.  Rev. 
William  Quarter,  who  was  consecrated  in  St.  Patrick's 
Cathedral,  New  York,  on  the  loth  of  March,  1844.  The 
priests  who  were  at  the  time  in  Chicago  belonged  to  the 
diocese  of  Vincennes  and  were  recalled  by  the  bishop  of 
that  see.  Bishop  Quarter  at  once  exerted  himself  to  obtain 
priests  to  fill  the  vacancies,  and  to  such  purpose  that  by 
the  close  of  the  year  he  had  twenty-three  priests  in  his 
diocese.  The  Catholic  population  of  the  State  was  esti- 
mated at  more  than  fifty  thousand. 

Full  of  that  spirit  of  energetic  go-aheadativeness  that  is 
said  to  have  characterized  the  city  of  Chicago  from  the 
very  beginning.  Bishop  Quarter  was  ceaseless  in  stimulat- 
ing congregations  to  build  churches,  and  seemed  to  reach 
out  in  all  directions  for  the  priests  needed  to  keep  pace 
with  immigration.  But  the  vast  and  constant  labor  had 
overtasked  his  strength  and  energies,  though  neither  he 
nor  those  around  him  saw  anything  to  excite  alarm.  He 
lectured  in  his  cathedral  throughout  the  Lent  of  1848,  and 
after  preaching  on  Passion  Sunday  seemed  to  be  greatly 
exhausted.  He  retired  early  to  rest ;  during  the  night  his 
moans  summoned  Rev.  P.  T.  McElhearne  to  his  room,  and 
he  was  found  seated  on  the  side  of  his  bed,  complaining 
of  excruciating  pain  in  his  head.  A  physician  was  sum- 
moned and  the  last  sacraments  were  administered.  With 
the  cry  "Lord,  have  mercy  on  my  poor  soul!"  he  sank 
into  a  comatose  state  and  soon  expired  (April  10,  1848). 

The  successor  of  Bishop  Quarter  was  a  Jesuit  father,  a 
native  of  Belgium,  who  since  his  ordination  (1827)  had 
been  on  the  mission  in  Maryland  and   Missouri,  the  Rev. 


BISHOP  II EX XI.  415 

James  Oliver  van  de  Velde.  He  was  consecrated  in  St. 
Louis  February  11,  1849.  Chicago  at  that  time  had  four 
churches — the  cathedral,  St.  Joseph's  Church  on  Chicago 
Avenue,  St.  Peter's  on  Washington  Street,  and  St.  Pat- 
rick's on  Randolph  Street;  a  theological  seminary,  with 
eighteen  students;  a  university,  St.  Mary  of  the  Lake; 
and  a  convent  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy,  with  its  academy. 
There  were  in  the  diocese  forty-eight  other  churches 
or  public  chapels,  and  forty  priests  to  minister  to  a 
constantly  increasing  body  of  eighty  thousand  Catholics. 
Bishop  Van  de  Velde  was  zealous  and  energetic,  but  a 
rheumatism,  from  which  he  had  long  suffered,  became  ex- 
tremely severe  in  the  damp  and  chilly  climate  of  Chicago. 
At  the  earliest  moment  that  he  could  communicate  with 
the  sovereign  pontiff  he  tendered  his  resignation.  Though 
refused  at  first,  he  did  finally  succeed  in  getting  himself 
transferred  to  the  see  of  Natchez. 

Wisconsin  and  eastern  Minnesota — that  is  to  say,  the 
part  of  Minnesota  east  of  the  Mississippi — were  classic 
ground  in  the  history  of  our  early  missions.  This  was  the 
territory  included  in  the  diocese  of  Milwaukee,  erected 
November  28,  1843.  Though  it  was  an  offshoot  of  Vin- 
cennes,  and  therefoi  or  Cincinnati,  Bardstown,  and  Balti- 
more, Milwaukee,  1  or  territorial  convenience,  was  made 
suffragan  to  St.  Louis  in  1849.  The  new  bishop  was  the 
Rev.  John  Martin  Henni,  a  native  of  Switzerland,  a  mis- 
sionary in  the  United  States  since  1828,  and  at  the  time 
of  his  appointment  Vicar  General  of  Cincinnati,  where  he 
was  consecrated  March  19,  1841.  Bishop  Henni,  after 
being  installed  in  the  one  little  wooden  church  of  Milwau- 
kee, which  required  three  masses  to  hold  the  three  con- 
gregations, French,  English-speaking,  and  German,  found 
in  the  diocese  twenty  congregations,  about  fourteen 
churches,  and  six  priests.      Under  the  impulse  given  by 


4l6  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

him  the  faithful  were  soon  busy  improving  or  erecting 
churches  throughout  the  diocese.  Indeed,  before  the  end 
of  the  year  1845  no  fewer  than  twenty  churches  were  in 
progress.  The  great  difficulty  was  to  obtain  clergymen 
for  these  willing  congregations.  Conscious  that  he  could 
not  depend  on  priests  from  other  parts,  he  projected  from 
the  outset  a  theological  seminary,  and  resolved  to  establish 
it  on  a  firm  basis.  In  forming  the  plan  of  his  seminary 
and  directing  it  he  was  greatly  aided  by  Rev.  Michael 
Heiss,  who  afterward  became  his  successor.  Much  had 
been  accomplished,  but,  as  more  remained  to  be  done, 
Bishop  Henni  resolved  to  visit  Europe  in  order  to  get  men 
and  means.  With  this  view  he  visited  Austria,  Bavaria, 
Wurtemberg,  Switzerland,  and  Rome.  He  must  have 
been  successful  in  his  journey,  for  soon  after  his  return  he 
purchased,  with  the  means  obtained  in  Europe,  a  site  for 
his  cathedral,  seventy-seven  by  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  feet,  erected  St.  Gall's  Church  and  that  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  in  Milwaukee,  and  prepared  plans  for  a  cathedral 
in  the  Byzantine  style,  the  corner-stone  of  which  was  laid 
on  the  8th  of  July,  1848,  with  imposing  ceremonial.  An- 
other result  of  his  journey  to  Europe  was  the  arrival  in 
his  diocese  of  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  (3rder  of  St. 
Francis,  and  of  the  school  sisters  of  Notre  Dame.  In  a 
pastoral  to  his  flock,  appealing  for  aid  to  carry  on  his 
cathedral,  he  reminded  the  faithful  of  what  had  been 
already  done :  "  When,  six  years  ago,  we  took  possession 
of  the  newly  established  bishopric  of  Milwaukee,  we  found 
nothing  of  note  here,  unless  what  the  most  urgent  and 
immediate  payments  enabled  us  to  retain.  All  things  had 
to  be  begun ;  all  things  had  to  be  created.  We  found  but 
four  priests  incorporated  in  our  diocese,  laboring  for  this 
great  fold  of  ten  thousand  souls.  We  number  now  over 
fifty  priests,  laboring  for  more  than  fifty  thousand  souls. 


DIOCESK    OF  ST.    PAUL.  417 

Churches  and  chapels  hav^e  sprung  up  in  unexampled 
numbers ;  schools,  institutions  of  piety,  and  convents  exist 
now  not  only  on  the  Milwaukee,  but  on  the  Wisconsin  and 
Mississippi  rivers.  Thank  God  with  us  that  he  has  thus 
blessed  this  diocese  beyond  expectation." 

The  Territory  of  Minnesota,  extending  northward  from 
the  Iowa  line  to  the  British  boundar}-,  westward  from  the 
St.  Croix  River  to  the  Missouri,  was  contained  in  the  dio- 
cese of  St.  Paul,  erected  July  19,  1 850.  This  Territory 
of  Minnesota  had  been  known  to  the  vovageur  and  the 
missionary,  and  their  memory  is  perpetuated  in  the  names 
now  borne  by  many  of  Minnesota's  lakes,  cities,  rivers, 
counties,  and  towns.  The  Rt.  Rev.  Joseph  Cretin,  chosen 
for  the  new  see,  v/as  a  native  of  Montluel,  in  the  department 
of  Ain,  France,  had  come  to  the  United  States  with  Bishop 
Loras  (April,  1839),  and  was  Vicar  General  of  Dubuque  at 
the  time  of  his  promotion.  On  receiving  notification  of  it 
he  went  to  France  to  be  consecrated  in  Belley,  the  see  of 
his  native  diocese,  January  26,  1851.  He  returned  with 
five  priests.  These,  with  the  veteran,  Augustine  Ravoux, 
were  the  nucleus  of  Bishop  Cretin's  clergy.  He  was  warmly 
welcomed  by  his  flock  and  escorted  to  the  little  log  house 
which  was  to  be  his  episcopal  residence. 

Outside  of  St.  Paul  there  v/as  not  much  to  show\  There 
was  a  small  Canadian  settlement  on  the  Minnesota  River 
opposite  Fort  Snelling,  which  was  known  then  as  St.  Peter 
and  is  known  now  as  Mendota.  Seven  miles  below  Fort 
Snelling,  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  was  the  city 
of  the  bishop's  see,  which  a  few  years  before  was  only  a 
small  Canadian  settlement  where  the  Rev.  Lucien  Galtier 
had  raised  a  log  chapel  that  he  named  St.  Paul,  in  fraternal 
remembrance  of  the  upper  settlement,  St.  Peter.  The  title 
of  the  chapel  is  preserved  in  the  name  of  the  capital  city. 
There   were,  moreover,  two   other  small   settlements,  one 


4l8  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

at  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  the  nucleus  of  Minneapolis,  and 
the  other  on  the  St.  Croix  River  where  now  stands  Still- 
water. The  Rev.  Augustine  Ravoux,  residing  by  turns  in 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  was  the  only  priest  in  the  whole 
Territory  when  it  was  erected  into  a  diocese.  Before  the 
bishop  arrived  from  France,  Father  Ravoux  made  pur- 
chases of  real  estate  in  the  young  city — a  village,  rather — 
of  St.  Paul  that  have  been  the  source  of  the  material  pros- 
perity of  the  diocese,  and  still  constitute  to-day  an  endow- 
ment of  no  mean  proportions.  The  new  diocese  had  ten 
priests  and  seven  churches  when  the  bishop  proceeded  to 
the  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore. 

At  the  request  of  the  Seventh  Provincial  Council  of 
Baltimore  the  territory  lying  between  the  western  bound- 
ary of  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota  and  the 
eastern  flank  of  the  Rockies  was  formed  into  the  vicari- 
ate apostolic  of  the  Indian  Territory.  The  Rev.  John  B. 
Miege,  S.J.,  named  Bishop  of  Messenia,  ///  partibns  infi- 
delinvi,  and  consecrated  March  25,  185 1,  was  put  in 
charge  of  this  vicariate.  It  comprised  the  present  States 
of  North  and  South  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Colorado, 
Wyoming,  and  eastern  Montana.  The  two  chief  mission 
posts  in  that  region  were  St.  Mary's  Pottowatomie  mis- 
sion and  St.  Francis  Hieronymo's  Osage  mission.  In  the 
former  the  annual  baptisms  were  about  one  hundred  and 
seventeen,  in  the  latter  five  hundred  had  been  baptized 
since  1847.  Not  for  long,  however,  was  this  vast  territory 
to  be  the  exclusive  home  of  the  Indians.  Already  white 
settlers  were  invading  it  at  the  time  of  the  First  Plenary 
Council  of  Baltimore.  The  vicariate  was  a  suffragan  of 
St.  Louis. 

When  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  (1848)  added 
New  Mexico  to  the  United  States,  religion,  there  was  in  a 


RELIGIOUS  COXDIIIO.X  OF  NEW  MEXICO.  419 

sad  condition.  The  Mexican  Bishop  of  Durango,  Bishop 
Zubiria,  even  after  the  cession  visited  New  Mexico,  in 
October,  1850,  for  he  had  received  from  the  holy  see  no 
notification  that  an  ecclesiastical  change  had  followed  the 
civil  change  of  that  territory.  However,  now  that  it  was 
part  of  the  United  States,  the  American  hierarchy  thought 
that  it  should  be  included  in  the  body  of  the  dioceses  of 
the  republic,  and  requested  the  holy  see  to  provide  it 
with  a  bishop.  Accordingly  New  Mexico  was  erected 
into  a  vicariate  apostolic,  and  the  Rev.  John  B.  Lamy,  a 
native  of  France  and  a  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Cincinnati, 
was  assigned  to  the  task  of  reorganizing  religious  affairs 
in  the  vicariate.  He  was  consecrated  in  Cincinnati  No- 
vember 24,  1850. 

The  vicar  apostolic  found  crying  abuses  existing,  and  by 
kind  and  patient  advice  endeavored  to  recall  the  clergy 
to  a  true  ecclesiastical  spirit ;  but  few  would  respond  to 
his  advices.  Having  ascertained  exactly  the  condition  of 
his  flock,  Bishop  Lamy  set  out  for  the  Council  of  Balti- 
more. The  estimated  population  of  New  Mexico  at  this 
time  was  sixty  thousand  Mexicans  and  eight  tliousand 
Indians.  There  were  twenty- five  parish  churches  and 
forty  scattered  chapels. 

The  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  (1848)  likewise 
brought  California  into  the  Union.  The  religious  condi- 
tion of  the  country  was  deplorable.  Cut  off  from  Mexico 
as  it  had  been  from  Spain,  no  further  supply  of  mission- 
aries could  be  expected  from  either.  When  the  discovery 
of  gold  was  made,  men  poured  in  from  all  countries,  who 
looked  with  utter  contempt  on  the  old  inhabitants.  Among 
the  immigrants  were  many  Catholics,  not  a  few  of  them 
rough  men  and  with  little  around  them  to  polish  their 
ways.  Yet  faith  was  not  dead  in  their  hearts;  they  soon 
felt  the  want  of  church  and  priest,  of  divine  service,  and 


420  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

of  the  sacraments  at  death.  Big-hearted  and  generous 
men  they  were,  ready  to  put  up  churches  and  support 
priests.  Letters  came  to  Archbishop  Eccleston  in  Balti- 
more and  to  Bishop  Hughes  in  New  York,  representing 
the  condition  of  affairs,  written  by  intelligent  Americans, 
Catholic  and  Protestant.  It  was  not  in  the  power  of  these 
dignitaries  to  interfere ;  they  could  only  appeal  to  Rome 
to  lose  no  time  in  providing  for  the  future  of  the  church 
in  a  part  of  the  country  which  was  soon  to  become  popu- 
lous and  important.  News  also  reached  Rome  that  an 
impostor,  representing  himself  to  be  an  apostolic  nuncio 
empowered  to  arrange  all  ecclesiastical  matters,  was  roam- 
ing about  California.      Speedy  measures  were  necessary. 

When  the  proceedings  of  the  Seventh  Council  of  Balti- 
more reached  Rome,  with  the  names  of  three  clergymen 
proposed  for  a  successor  to  Bishop  Garcia  Diego  in  the 
see  of  Monterey,  matters  became  somewhat  clear  to  the 
Roman  authorities.  The  sovereign  pontiff  appointed  as 
Bishop  of  Monterey  Rev.  Father  Joseph  Sadoc  Alemany, 
a  Spaniard  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  who  had  been 
for  some  years  on  the  American  missions.  He  was  in 
Rome  at  the  time  of  his  nomination,  and  was  consecrated 
in  the  Church  of  San  Carlo,  June  13,  1850,  by  Cardinal 
Fransoni. 

Oregon  became,  in  18 10,  the  field  of  the  fur-trading 
operations  of  John  Jacob  Astor,  who  made  Astoria  his 
chief  post.  Iroquois  and  Canadian  Catholics  came  to 
Oregon  with  the  expeditions  of  Lewis  and  Clark  (1805) 
and  of  Hunt  (181 1),  some  of  whom  subsequently  took 
service  in  the  Northwest  and  Hudson  Bay  companies,  and 
settled  in  the  Willamette  Valley.  This  was  the  cradle  of 
Oregon  Catholicity.  The  English  were  virtually  in  pos- 
session of  the  country,  the  United  States  doing  nothing  to 


THE  NORTH  PACIFIC   COAST.  42  I 

enforce  its  claims.  The  first  attempt  by  Americans  to 
gain  a  footing  in  Oregon  was  due  to  Protestant  missionary 
societies,  under  whom  a  Methodist  mission  was  estabhshed 
in  1834  and  a  Presbyterian  one  in  1836.  The  Canadians 
in  the  Willamette  Valley  wrote  in  1834  and  the  follow- 
ing year  to  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Provencher,  residing  at  the  Red 
River,  as  the  nearest  Catholic  authority,  asking  for  a  priest. 
He  had  no  clergyman  whom  he  could  send  to  their  relief, 
and  advised  them  to  apply  to  Canada. 

When  their  application  reached  the  Archbishop  of 
Quebec  he  selected  Rev.  Francis  Norbert  Blanchet,  a  par- 
ish priest  in  his  diocese,  and  Rev.  Modeste  Demers  to 
become  the  spiritual  guides  of  the  Canadian  settlers  on 
the  Pacific,  and  to  establish  missions  among  the  native 
tribes ;  he  moreover  appointed  Rev.  Mr.  Blanchet  his 
vicar  general  for  Oregon,  thus  assuming  that  it  was  Eng- 
lish territory.  The  directors  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company, 
however,  recognized  that  the  Willamette  Valley  was  cer- 
tainly American  territory  and  must  ultimately  be  yielded 
to  the  United  States.  They  insisted,  therefore,  on  tlie 
establishment  of  the  French  mission  at  Cowlitz  Portage, 
which  they  regarded  as  being  certainly  within  the  British 
limits.  Very  Rev.  Mr.  Blanchet  started  from  Montreal  in 
a  bark  canoe  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  May  3,  1838, 
and  was  joined  at  Red  River  by  Rev.  Mr.  Demers.  A 
long  and  painful  journey  of  more  than  four  thousand  miles 
brought  them  at  last,  on  the  24th  of  November,  to  P^ort 
Vancouver. 

The  total  number  of  the  Canadian  Catholics  in  the  dif- 
ferent posts  and  settlements,  with  their  wives  and  children, 
was  estimated  at  about  nine  hundred.  Many  had  not  seen 
a  priest,  heard  mass,  or  approached  the  sacraments  from 
twenty  to  forty  years.     There   was  still  faith,  but  there 


422  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

was  great  ignorance.  The  situation  required  patient  in- 
struction to  be  given  to  old  and  young,  marriages  to  be 
validated,  children  to  be  baptized.  There  was  labor 
enough  here  for  the  missionaries,  but  they  endeavored 
also  to  instruct  the  Indians.  Meanwhile  the  fathers  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus  undertook  missions  among  the  Flathead 
and  other  Rocky  Mountain  tribes.  These  missions  were 
founded  by  the  famous  Belgian  Jesuit  Father  De  Smet, 
and  are  to-day  in  a  very  flourishing  condition. 

The  condition  of  the  Oregon  missions  and  the  necessity 
of  ecclesiastical  organization  for  that  territory  were  repre- 
sented to  the  Sacred  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide 
both  by  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  and  his  suffragans 
and  by  the  Archbishop  of  Quebec.  The  sovereign  pon- 
tiff, accordingly,  by  his  brief  of  December,  1843,  estab- 
lished the  vicariate  apostolic  of  Oregon,  embracing  all  the 
territory  between  the  Mexican  province  of  California  in 
the  south  and  the  Russian  province  of  Alaska  in  the  north, 
and  extending  from  the  Pacific  Ocean  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  The  Very  Rev.  Francis  Norbert  Blanchet  was 
appointed  Bishop  of  Drasa,  in  partibiis  injidelinm,  and 
Vicar  Apostolic  of  Oregon,  May  7,  1844.  Soon  after 
receiving  his  bulls  the  bishop  elect  sailed  for  Montreal. 
There  he  was  consecrated  in  the  cathedral  by  the  Rt. 
Rev.  Ignatius  Bourget,  bishop  of  that  city.  After  receiv- 
ing the  episcopal  consecration  he  sailed  for  Europe.  On 
reaching  Rome  he  presented  a  memoir  to  the  Sacred  Con- 
gregation de  Propaganda  Fide  on  the  condition  of  his 
vicariate.  The  result  of  his  six  years  of  labor  was  four- 
teen chapels  and  as  many  missions,  one  thousand  Catholic 
Canadians,  six  thousand  Indian  converts,  and  two  educa- 
tional establishments.  As  he  insisted  on  the  necessity  of 
dividing  his  vast  vicariate,  the  sovereign  pontiff  (July  24, 
1846)  erected  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Oregon  City,  and 


FIRST  PLENARY  COUNCIL  OF  BALTIMORE.  423 

the  dioceses  of  Nesqually,  Walla  Walla,  Fort  Hall,  Colville, 
Vancouver,  Princess  Charlotte's  Island,  and  New  Cale- 
donia. But  of  these  projected  sees  only  Vancouver  and 
Nesqually  became  realities ;  the  others  remained  on  paper. 

Archbishop  Blanchet  sailed  from  Brest  February  22, 
1847,  with  a  retinue  of  eleven  priests  and  seven  sisters  of 
the  Congregation  of  Notre  Dame  de  Namur.  After  a 
voyage  of  nearly  six  months,  their  bark,  "  L'Etoile  du 
Matin,"  anchored  in  the  Columbia  River  August  13,  1847. 
Archbishop  Blanchet  set  up  his  archiepiscopal  throne  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Paul,  on  the  Willamette,  which  became 
his  cathedral. 

The  diocese  of  Nesqually  was  erected  May  31,  1850; 
but  it  had  existed  under  the  name  of  the  diocese  of  Walla 
Walla  since  September  2^,  1846,  when  its  incumbent,  the 
Rev.  Augustine  Magloire  Alexander  Blanchet,  brother  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Oregon,  was  consecrated  in  Montreal. 
As  Bishop  of  Nesqually  he  resided  in  Vancouver.  Previ- 
ous to  the  change  of  title  and  of  territory  he  had  resided 
at  Fort  Walla  Walla,  and  had  under  his  jurisdiction  the 
districts  of  Colville  and  Fort  Hall  and  the  country  between 
the  forty-second  and  fiftieth  degrees  of  latitude.  After 
his  transfer  from  Walla  Walla  to  Nesqually  his  diocese  was 
the  present  State  of  Washington. 

We  may  now  sum  up  the  evolution  of  the  hierarchy 
from  1829,  date  of  the  First  Provincial  Council  of  Balti- 
more, to  1852,  date  of  the  First  Plenary  Council  of  Balti- 
more. At  the  first  council  presided  over  by  the  Metro- 
politan of  Baltimore  there  were  present  in  person  or  by 
proxy  his  suff"ragans,  the  Bishops  of  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  Boston,  Charleston,  Bardstown,  and  Cincinnati. 
Besides  these,  and  outside  the  ecclesiastical  province  of 
Baltimore,  there  were  in  the  United  States  the  Bishops  of 


424  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

New  Orleans,  St.  Louis,  and  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Ala- 
bama, who  did  not  form  an  ecclesiastical  province,  since 
no  one  of  them  was  archbishop.  Therefore  the  hierarchy 
of  the  United  States  in  1829  was  made  up  of  one  arch- 
bishop and  nine  bishops.  Since  that  time  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  Boston,  Bardstown,  Cincinnati, 
New  Orleans,  and  St.  Louis  branched  out  into  other  sees 
and  dioceses.  .  The  evolution  was  rapid  and  marvelous  in 
the  North  and  the  West,  so  that  in  1852  the  schedule  stands 
thus :  archbishoprics :  Baltimore,  New  York,  Cincinnati, 
St.  Louis,  New  Orleans ;  suffragan  bishoprics :  for  Balti- 
more :  Philadelphia,  Pittsburg,  Richmond,  Charleston, 
Wheeling,  and  Savannah  ;  for  New  York  :  Albany,  Buffalo, 
Boston,  and  Hartford;  for  Cincinnati :  Louisville  (formerly 
Bardstown),  Vincennes,  Detroit,  and  Cle\'eland ;  for  New 
Orleans :  Mobile,  Natchez,  Little  Rock,  and  Galveston ; 
for  St.  Louis :  Dubuque,  Nashville,  Chicago,  Milwaukee, 
St.  Paul,  and  the  vicariate  of  the  Lidian  Territory ;  prov- 
inces, five;  suffragans,  twenty-four. 

But  this  is  not  all.  \\\  1846  the  status  and  boundary 
of  Oregon  were  settled  by  treaty  with  England  ;  moreover, 
by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  (1848),  New  Mexico  and 
California  came  into  the  Union.  Now  in  1850  New 
Mexico  was  erected  into  a  vicariate  apostolic,  and  in  Cali- 
fornia there  was  the  diocese  of  Monterey.  While  the 
status  of  Oregon  was  unsettled  and  its  boundary  was  in 
dispute,  a  vicariate,  then  a  bishopric,  then  an  archbishopric 
having  as  suffragans  one  American  diocese,  Nesqually,  and 
one  British  diocese,  Vancouver  Island,  sprang  into  exist- 
ence apart  from  and  independently  of  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Eastern  States.  We  have,  then,  to  add  to  the  foregoing 
archbishoprics  the  hybrid  province  of  Oregon  with  its  one 
American  suffragan,  and  we  have  to  add  to  the  bishoprics 
those  of  New  Mexico  and  California,  which  were  not  yet 


A   NE'lV  PERIOD.  425 

assigned  to  any  province  ;  and  thus  we  get  for  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the  First  Plenary 
Council  of  Baltimore  a  total  of  six  provinces  and  twenty - 
seven  suffragan  dioceses. 

When,  on  Sunday,  May  9,  1852,  the  American  hie- 
rarchy, with  an  abbot  of  La  Trappe,  the  superiors  of 
the  Augustinians,  Dominicans,  Benedictines,  Franciscans, 
Jesuits,  Redemptorists,  Lazarists,  and  Sulpitians,  the 
officials  of  the  synod,  and  the  theologians  of  the  bishops, 
filed  in  solemn  procession  into  the  cathedral  of  Baltimore 
for  the  opening  of  the  council,  the  country  and  the  world 
beheld  the  objective  lesson  of  a  growth  and  extension 
within  half  a  century  for  the  like  of  which  we  must  go 
back  to  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity,  when  in  the 
freshness  of  youth  and  the  vigor  of  apostolic  zeal  the 
church  laid  hold  of  the  Roman  empire.  And  when  that 
august  assembly  closed  its  sessions  it  had  added  to  the 
number  of  American  bishops,  for  it  solicited  and  obtained 
from  the  holy  see  the  erection  of  new  sees  at  Portland, 
Me.,  Burlington,  Vt.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  Newark,  N.  J., 
Erie,  Pa.,  Covington,  Ky.,  Quincy,  111.,  Santa  Fe,  N.  Mex., 
Natchitoches,  La.,  a  vicariate  apostolic  in  Upper  Michigan, 
and  an  archiepiscopal  see  in  San  Francisco. 

The  period  that  now  opens  is  the  period  of  the  Civil  War 
that  split  the  country  in  two  sections,  the  South  and  the 
North.  The  hierarchy  of  the  United  States  was  not  split ; 
its  unity  stood  the  shock,  unbroken.  If,  then,  I  head  the 
two  following  chapters  *'  The  Church  in  the  South,"  "  The 
Church  in  the  North,"  it  is  for  the  reason  that  before  and 
during  and  after  the  great  conflict  the  growth  of  the  church 
in  the  South  was  almost  null,  whereas  in  the  North  it  was 
gigantic.  Growth,  being  the  main  idea  that  underlies  this 
history,  naturally  suggests  the  headings  which,  without 
this  explanation,  might  look  sectional,  partisan,  and  inju- 


426  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxv. 

rious  to  our  religious  unity.  If  I  include  in  the  North 
certain  dioceses  in  border  States  more  attached  to  the 
Confederacy  than  the  Union,  it  is  because  those  dioceses 
were  suffragans  of  provinces  that  were  mainly  Northern. 
The  division,  while  convenient  for  my  purpose,  is  not 
absolutely  perfect. 


Part  III.  The  Growth  of  the  Church  from  the 

First  Plenary  to  the  Second  Plenary 

Council  of  BALTiMOiiE  (1852-66). 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

THE    CHURCH    IN    THE    SOUTH  (1852-66). 

Before  proceeding  with  my  narrative  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  hierarchy  I  must  insert  here  the  strange 
Bedini  episode. 

For  several  years  the  United  States  had  been  represented 
in  Rome  by  a  resident  minister.  Pius  IX.  had  therefore 
the  right  to  be  represented,  if  he  deemed  it  necessary  or 
expedient,  by  a  nuncio  in  Washington.  No  step,  however, 
in  this  direction  had  as  yet  been  taken.  The  Most  Rev. 
Cajetan  Bedini,  Archbishop  of  Thebes,  appointed  as  nuncio 
to  the  court  of  Brazil  in  1853,  was  commissioned  by  the 
holy  see  to  remain  in  the  United  States,  on  the  way  to  his 
post,  long  enough  to  look  into  certain  complaints  made 
by  the  German  trustees  of  churches  in  Philadelphia  and 
Buffalo.  He  was  also  intrusted  with  a  friendly  letter  from 
the  Pope  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  Arrived 
in  Washington,  Bedini  had  an  interview  with  President 
Pierce.  But  when  it  became  a  question  of  recognizing 
him  as  a  member  of  the  diplomatic  corps,  the  State  De- 
partment raised  difficulties  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not 

427 


428  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvi. 

a  layman.  Moreover,  Gavazzi,  an  apostate  Italian  priest 
who  was  in  the  country  at  the  time,  aided  by  Italian  and 
German  revolutionists,  refugees  from  Europe,  circulated 
the  vilest  calumnies  against  the  personal  character  of  the 
nuncio.  The  press  helped  to  spread  them.  Anti-Catho- 
lic public  opinion  was  worked  up  to  so  high  a  pitch  of 
fanaticism  that  his  assassination  was  secretly  plotted. 
Nothing  daunted,  Mgr.  Bedini  went  on  with  the  work  of 
his  mission,  the  examination  and  settlement  of  the  com- 
plaints of  the  Germans  of  Buffalo  and  Philadelphia.  He 
was  not  successful  in  this  direction;  but  the  work  gave 
him  the  opportunity  of  visiting  most  of  the  episcopal  sees 
of  the  country  from  Canada  to  New  Orleans  and  from 
New  York  to  Milwaukee.  Everywhere  his  reception  was 
respectful  and  enthusiastic  from  the  Catholics,  sullen  and 
turbulent  from  the  Protestants.  Had  not  the  authorities 
acted  with  energy  in  Cincinnati,  to  give  but  one  instance, 
an  organized  attempt  to  hang  him  and  burn  the  cathedral 
might  have  been  effected.  Rome  had  been  ill  advised — 
Know-nothingism  was  still  rampant ;  the  times  were  not 
propitious  to  a  Roman  envoy. 

The  report  made  by  Bedini  to  the  holy  see  is  of  the 
highest  importance.      I  summarize  it : 

Catholicity  in  the  United  States  was  an  organized, 
united,  increasing  body,  with  dioceses,  churches,  and  in- 
stitutions of  every  kind.  Catholics  were  well  represented 
in  the  different  conditions  of  life ;  in  civil,  military,  and 
naval  positions.  The  German  immigrants,  largely  made 
up  of  infidels  and  revolutionists,  were  active,  turbulent, 
and  by  their  newspapers  and  societies  exerted  a  detri- 
mental influence  on  their  Catholic  fellow-countrymen. 
Of  the  larger,  and  mostly  Catholic,  Irish  immigration  he 
noted  the  strong  faith  and  attachment  to  the  church,  the 
result  of  perpetual  persecution  at  home ;  but  they  were 


BEDINPS  REPORT.  429 

exposed  to  great  losses  from  being  led  into  vice,  neglect- 
ing their  religious  duties,  and  in  many  cases  from  the  fact 
that  no  priest  or  church  was  near  to  recall  them.  Want 
of  Catholic  schools  for  the  education  of  their  children  was 
another  source  of  possible  losses. 

Referring  to  the  episcopate,  Archbishop  Bedini  declared 
that  an  episcopal  body  so  respected  and  so  worthy  of 
respect  as  that  of  the  United  States  was  a  real  blessing. 
They  were  all  loved  and  venerated  in  the  highest  degree 
by  their  people  and  even  by  Protestants.  Everywhere  he 
found  bishops  building  or  encouraging  the  clergy  to  build 
churches  and  institutions,  though  their  means  were  .scanty. 
They  were  no  longer  hampered  by  the  fatal  trustee  system, 
now  confined  within  very  narrow  limits.  The  clergy  as  a 
body  were  edifying  and  laborious  in  the  discharge  of  the 
complicated  duties  imposed  upon  them :  compelled  to  col- 
lect money  to  build  churches  and  schools,  besides  attend- 
ing to  the  discharge  of  their  sacred  ministry.  He  urged, 
where  possible,  the  appointment  of  bishops  of  American 
birth.  "  I  myself  had  occasion  to  see  that  not  onl)^  more 
deference  was  paid  to  the  advice  and  direction  of  an 
American-born  bishop,  but  that  the  bishop  himself  is  more 
courageous,  fearless,  and  steadfast  in  the  struggles  which 
not  infrequently  arise."  He  spoke  strongly  against  divid- 
ing the  Catholics  into  German  and  English  speaking. 
"  It  is  enough  to  reflect  that  no  English,  American,  or 
Irish  citizen  learns  German,  and  that  every  German  seeks 
earnestly  to  acquire  the  English  language.  The  rising 
German  generation  speaks  and  understands  English  so 
well  that  mothers  complain  they  cannot  understand  their 
children  when  they  converse  together."  Of  the  regular 
orders,  especially  of  the  Jesuits,  Redemptorists,  and  Bene- 
dictines, as  well  as  of  the  religious  communities  of  women, 
he  spoke  in  terms  of  highest  praise. 


430  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvi. 

The  South  was  mainly  comprised  in  the  two  provinces 
of  Baltimore  and  New  Orleans. 

The  province  of  Baltimore  contained  the  following  dio- 
ceses:  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Pittsburg,  Erie,  Richmond, 
Wheeling,  Charleston,  Savannah.  Taking  them  up  in  the 
order  named,  I  shall  review  them  briefly,  noting  the  in- 
crease within  them  of  clergy  and  laity,  of  parishes  and 
churches,  and  the  injuries  inflicted  on  them  by  the  Civil 
War.  In  the  narrative  of  the  first  period  I  have  been 
somewhat  minute  in  detailing  the  names  of  priests  and 
parishes,  for  the  reason  that  the  beginnings  of  things  great, 
because  of  their  smallness  and  remoteness,  are  more  fasci- 
nating than  is  their  later  development.  But  as  the  field 
extends,  as  the  dioceses  multiply,  as  the  clergy  increase 
and  parishes  grow  more  numerous,  the  necessity  of  taking 
broader  views,  no  less  than  the  want  of  space,  warns  me 
to  condense  the  narrative  to  more  general  considerations. 

Shortly  after  the  closing  of  the  First  Plenary  Council  a 
diocesan  synod  was  held  in  Baltimore  (February  22,  1853), 
at  which  were  present  thirty- five  diocesan  and  seventeen 
religious  priests.  Maryland  was  not  one  of  the  States  into 
which  immigration  flowed  abundantly.  Its  lands  were  too 
high-priced  for  the  agricultural  newcomers ;  and,  as  it  was 
a  slave  State,  the  immigrants  who  sought  a  livelihood  by 
labor  naturally  avoided  it.  Consequently  the  growth  of 
population  was  slow,  and  so  was  the  multiplication  of  par- 
ishes and  churches.  In  1857  the  number  of  Catholics  in 
Baltimore  was  estimated  at  80,814,  for  whose  use  there 
were  thirteen  churches.  But  if  the  younger  dioceses  were 
destined  to  outgrow  the  older  in  numbers,  one  privilege  and 
glory  was  to  remain  to  the  mother  see.  The  Pope,  at  the 
request  of  the  Ninth  Provincial  Council  (May  2,  1858), 
granted  to  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  the  prerogative 
of  place  in  all  ecclesiastical  meetings  in  the  United  States, 


CllCRCIJ  AXD    CIVIL    WAR.  43 1 

and  the  right  of  placing  his  throne  above  even  those  of 
archbishops  older  by  date  of  consecration. 

The  great  Civil  War,  that  assured  by  an  appalling  sacri- 
fice of  wealth  and  lives  the  faltering  unity  of  this  nation, 
and  shattered  for  a  time  the  seeming  unity  of  many  relig- 
ious denominations,  did  but  bring  into  clearer  evidence  the 
hierarchical  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Its  members, 
it  is  true,  divided  off  on  political  grounds ;  it  was  their 
right  and,  as  they  supposed,  their  duty ;  but  there  was  not 
any  division  in  organization,  discipline,  and  faith.  To 
both  sides  of  the  conflict,  the  church  sent  her  heroes  of 
charity,  and  oftentimes,  indeed,  the  same  heroes  to  both 
sides  ;  detailed  her  priests  from  the  parish  and  the  college, 
her  nuns  from  the  orphan  asylum  and  the  schoolroom,  to 
the  camp,  the  hospital,  the  prison,  and  the  bloody  battle- 
field. Meanwhile  her  sacred  edifices  resounded  with  ear- 
nest petitions  to  Heaven  for  peace,  with  solemn  requiems 
for  the  fallen  on  the  field ;  and  not  infrequently  they  were 
turned  into  hospitals  for  the  wounded  and  dying  brought 
in  from  the  battle  raging  near  by. 

Archbishop  Kenrick  survived  by  ten  years  the  council 
over  which  he  had  presided  ;  he  was  found  by  his  household 
dead  in  his  room  on  the  morning  of  July  7,  i  S63,  though  the 
day  before  he  had  been  as  well  as  usual.  His  learning  was 
of  the  highest  order,  and  has  not  been  surpassed,  if  equaled, 
by  that  of  any  other  of  our  American  prelates.  Thoroughly 
versed  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  he  spoke  French, 
Spanish,  Italian,  and  German  fluently.  He  gave  to  the 
church  excellent  dogmatic  and  moral  theologies,  a  new  Eng- 
lish version  of  the  Bible,  with  critical  notes,  a  "Vindication 
of  the  Catholic  Church,"  a  noble  book  on  the  Primacy  of 
the  apostolic  see,  treatises  on  Baptism  and  Justification. 
His  controversial  works  were  marked  with  deep  erudition, 
calmness,  and  charity. 


432  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvi. 

Cardinal  Newman,  in  liis  "  Historical  Sketch  of  St. 
Basil,"  remarks  that  the  instruments  used  by  God  in  the 
accomplishment  of  his  purposes  are  of  two  kinds.  The 
first  are  men  of  acute  and  ready  mind,  with  accurate 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  large  plans,  sociable  and 
popular,  endued  with  boldness,  instinctive  tact,  and  zeal. 
Such  were  the  intrepid  Hildebrand,  the  majestic  Am- 
brose, the  never- wearied  Athanasius ;  and  such  was,  in 
our  own  history,  John  Hughes  of  New  York.  But  there 
are  instruments  of  less  elaborate  and  splendid  workman- 
ship, less  rich  in  political  endo^yments,  yet  not  less  beauti- 
ful in  texture  nor  less  precious  in  material.  Such  is  the 
retired  and  thoughtful  student  who  for  years  has  chastened 
his  soul  in  secret,  raising  it  to  high  thought  and  single- 
minded  purpose,  and  then  is  called  into  active  life,  where 
he  conducts  himself  with  firmness,  guilelessness,  and  all 
the  sweetness  of  purity  and  integrity.  Unskilled  in  the 
weaknesses  of  human  nature,  unfurnished  in  the  resources 
of  ready  wit,  negligent  of  men's  applause,  he  does  his 
work  seemingly  unsuccessfully,  and  so  leaves  it;  but  in  the 
generation  after  him  it  lives  again.  Such  were  Basil,  Peter 
Damien,  and  Anselm,  and  such  was  Archbishop  Kenrick. 
Each  class  serves  God  according  to  the  peculiar  gifts 
given ;  and  in  the  long  run  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  of 
the  two  classes  of  men  served  the  cause  of  truth  more 
effectually. 

We  have  seen,  in  regard  to  the  appointment  of  the  Rev. 
John  Carroll  as  prefect  apostolic,  that  the  federal  govern- 
ment had  refused,  when  consulted,  to  take  any  action  in 
the  matter.  "The  precedent  thus  established,"  writes  the 
Rt.  Rev.  J.  L.  Spalding,  in  "  The  Life  of  the  Most  Rev. 
M.  J.  Spalding,"  "  of  non-interference  in  matters  apper- 
taining to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  church  has  been,  almost 
without  exception,  adhered  to  by  the  government  of  this 


ARCHBISHOP  srALDIXG.  433 

country.  But  when,  during  the  excitement  of  the  Civil 
War,  which  seemed  to  threaten  our  national  existence,  the 
two  most  important  sees — those  of  Baltimore  and  New- 
York — became  vacant,  there  seemed  for  a  while  to  be  a 
disposition  to  meddle  with  the  liberty  of  action  of  the 
church  in  the  choice  of  bishops.  The  urgency  of  the  times 
had  given  to  the  authorities  in  Washington  a  power  which 
they  had  never  before  exercised ;  and,  as  power  often 
gains  increase  of  appetite  from  what  it  feeds  upon,  they 
were  inclined  to  stretch  their  Jurisdiction  as  far  as  possible, 
without  having  any  very  nice  regard  for  the  limits  assigned 
to  it  by  the  organic  law-  of  the  land." 

The  Rt.  Rev.  M.  J.  Spalding,  at  the  time  Bishop  of 
Louisville,  under  date  of  February  7,  1864,  makes  the 
following  entry  in  his  journal:  "There  appears  to  be  no 
doubt  that  the  government  has  interfered  at  Rome  in 
regard  to  the  appointments  to  the  sees  of  Baltimore  and 
New  York."  But,  at  any  rate,  if  action  was  taken  by  the 
government,  it  does  not  seem  to  have  had  any  result,  so 
far  as  we  know.  The  appointment  of  Bishop  Spalding 
to  fill  the  see  of  Baltimore,  made  vacant  by  the  death  of 
Archbishop  Kenrick,  met  with  the  almost  unixersal  ap- 
proval of  the  Catholics  of  the  country.  Many  of  the 
bishops  and  priests  expressed  their  great  satisfaction  with 
the  choice  made  by  the  Holy  Father  in  terms  the  most 
complimentary.  "  Probably  no  one  could  ha\-e  been 
chosen  who  would  have  been  more  acceptable  either  to 
the  clergy  or  the  laity  of  the  archdiocese  of  Baltimore.  His 
record  as  Bishop  of  Louisville  gave  assurance  of  his  admin- 
istrative ability  ;  whilst  the  honorable  name  which  he  had 
made  for  himself  by  his  writings  and  other  labors  in  the 
cause  of  the  church  inspired  the  confident  belief  that  he 
would  be  a  not  unworthy  successor  of  Carroll  and  Kenrick. 
He  came  not  among  the  Catholics  as  a  stranger.     They 


434  ^^^'  KOMAX  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvi. 

but  welcomed  home  a  not  degenerate  son  of  the  pilgrims 
of  Lord  Baltimore." 

The  two  events  of  public  importance  preceding  the 
holding  of  the  Second  Plenary  Council  were  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Syllabus  and  the  assassination  of  President 
Lincoln.  Both  events  drew  from  the  Archbishop  of  Bal- 
timore expressions  that  may  stand  for  the  opinions  and 
feelings  of  the  Catholics  in  the  United  States.  The  Sylla- 
bus— by  no  means  an  act  of  infallibility — because  it  was 
generally  misunderstood,  raised  in  this  country  a  great 
outcry.  "The  outcry,"  writes  the  Rt.  Rev.  J.  L.  Spald- 
ing, "  was  that  the  Pope  had  condemned  all  the  most  sa- 
cred principles  of  our  government."  To  this  Archbishop 
Spalding  replied  that  "  to  stretch  the  words  of  the  pontiff, 
evidently  intended  for  the  standpoint  of  European  radicals 
and  infidels,  so  as  to  make  them  include  the  state  of  things 
established  in  this  country  by  our  Constitution  in  regard 
to  liberty  of  conscience,  of  worship,  and  of  the  press,  was 
manifestly  unfair  and  unjust.  Divided  as  we  were  in 
religious  sentiment  from  the  very  origin  of  our  govern- 
ment, our  fathers  acted  most  prudently  and  wisely  in 
adopting,  as  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  the 
organic  article  that  '  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respect- 
ing the  establishment  of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free 
exercise  thereof.'  In  adopting  this  amendment  they  cer- 
tainly did  not  intend,  like  the  European  radical  disciples 
of  Tom  Paine  and  the  French  Revolution,  to  pronounce 
all  religions,  whether  true  or  false,  equal  before  God,  but 
only  to  declare  them  equal  before  the  law ;  or  rather  sim- 
ply to  lay  down  the  sound  and  equitable  principle  that  the 
civil  government,  adhering  strictly  to  its  own  appropriate 
sphere  of  political  duty,  pledged  itself  not  to  interfere  with 
religious  matters,  which  it  rightly  viewed  as  entirely  with- 
out the  bounds  of  its  competency. 


SYLLABUS— DEATH  OF  LINCOLN.  435 

"  The  founders  of  our  government  were,  thank  God, 
neither  latitudinarians  nor  infidels;  they  were  earnest, 
honest  men ;  and  however  much  some  of  them  may  have 
been  personally  lukewarm  in  the  matter  of  religion,  or 
may  have  differed  in  religious  opinions,  they  still  professed 
to  believe  in  Christ  and  his  revelation,  and  they  exhib- 
ited a  commendable  respect  for  religious  observances.  All 
other  matters  contained  in  the  Encyclical  that  accompa- 
nied the  Syllabus,  as  well  as  the  long  catalogue  of  eighty 
propositions  condemned  in  its  Appendix  or  Syllabus,  are 
to  be  judged  by  the  same  standard.  These  propositions 
are  condemned  in  the  sense  of  those  who  uttered  and 
maintained  them,  and  in  no  other.  To  be  fair  in  our  inter- 
pretation, we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  lofty  standpoint 
of  the  pontiff,  who  steps  forth  as  the  champion  of  law  and 
order  against  anarchy  and  revolution,  and  of  revealed 
religion  against  more  or  less  openly  avowed  infidelity. 
Nor  should  we  forget  the  standpoint  of  those  whose  errors 
he  condemns,  who  openly  or  covertly  assail  all  revealed 
religion,  and  seek  to  sap  the  very  foundations  of  all  well- 
ordered  society ;  who  threaten  to  bring  back  the  untold 
horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  to  make  the  streets 
and  the  highways  run  with  the  blood  of  the  best  and 
noblest  citizens."  Nor  should  we  forget  that  the  Syllabus 
is  as  technical  and  legal  in  its  language  as  a  syllabus  of 
our  courts,  and  therefore  needs  to  be  interpreted  to  the 
lay  reader  by  the  ecclesiastical  lawyer. 

The  assassination  of  Lincoln,  a  man  who  is  the  more 
admired  the  better  time  makes  him  known,  filled  the  land 
with  dismay  and  indignation.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
lay  the  deed  to  the  charge  of  Catholics.  There  had 
undoubtedly  been,  some  tima  previous  to  and  quite 
unconnected  with  the  murder,  a  conspiracy,  which  failed, 
however,  and  in  which  John  Surratt,  a  Catholic,  misled  by 


436  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chai'.  xxvi. 

his  Southern  sympathies,  was  implicated.  The  fact  that 
meetings  of  the  conspirators  were  held  in  the  house  of 
John  Surratt's  mother,  without  her  knowledge  of  their 
purpose,  was  the  insufficient  ground  on  which  that  unfor- 
tunate and  innocent  woman  was  tried,  condemned,  and 
executed  by  a  military  tribunal.  She  was  sacrificed  by 
an  alarmed  administration  to  the  country's  cry  for  venge- 
ance. The  murderer  was  not  a  Catholic.  None  in  the 
land  were  more  shocked,  none  more  outspoken  against  the 
dark  deed,  than  the  Catholic  community.  The  following 
circular  from  Archbishop  Spalding  is  but  one  of  many 
that  were  issued  in  all  our  dioceses : 

"  Fellow-citizens:  A  deed  of  blood  has  been  perpe- 
trated which  causes  every  heart  to  shudder,  and  which 
calls  for  the  execration  of  every  citizen.  On  Good  Friday, 
the  hallowed  anniversary  of  our  blessed  Lord's  crucifixion, 
when  all  Christendom  was  bowed  down  in  penitence  and 
sorrow  at  his  tomb,  the  President  of  these  United  States 
was  foully  assassinated,  and  a  wicked  attempt  was  made 
upon  the  life  of  the  Secretary  of  State.  Words  fail  us  in 
expressing  detestation  for  a  deed  so  atrocious,  hitherto 
happily  unparalleled  in  our  history.  Silence  is  perhaps 
the  best  and  most  appropriate  expression  of  a  sorrow  too 
great  for  utterance.  We  are  quite  sure  that  we  need  not 
remind  our  brethren  in  this  archdiocese  of  the  duty, 
whfch  we  are  confident  they  will  willingly  perform,  of 
uniting  with  their  fellow-citizens  in  whatever  may  be 
deemed  most  suitable  for  indicating  their  horror  of  the 
crime  and  their  feelings  of  sympathy  with  the  bereaved. 
We  also  invite  them  to  join  in  humble  supplication  to  God 
for  our  bereaved  and  afflided  country  ;  and  we  enjoin  that 
the  bells  of  all  our  churches  be  solemnly  tolled  on  the 
occasion  of  the  late  President's  funeral." 


BISHOP  NEUMANN.  437 

In  1866  Archbishop  Spalding  received  from  Rome  let- 
ters appointing  him  delegate  apostolic  to  preside  over  the 
Second  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore. 

To  succeed  Bishop  Kenrick  in  the  see  of  Philadelphia 
Rome  selected  Father  John  Nepomucene  Neumann,  of  the 
Order  of  Redemptorists,  a  native  of  Bohemia.  He  was 
consecrated  March  28,  1852.  Under  his  apostolic  admin- 
istration— for  he  was  a  saintly  man — the  spirit  of  religious 
devotion  increased  in  the  city  that  had  suffered  so  much 
from  schism;  new  parishes  were  formed  and  new  churches 
arose  throughout  the  diocese,  not  less  than  twenty  being 
built  in  the  first  year  of  his  episcopate.  Conscious  of  his 
shortcomings  as  a  financier.  Bishop  Neumann  sought  to 
have  two  more  dioceses  established  within  the  territory 
under  his  jurisdiction,  Pottsville  and  Wilmington,  with  the 
intent,  it  appears,  to  get  himself  transferred  to  one  of  them, 
leaving  the  more  important  diocese  of  Philadelphia  to 
abler  hands.  The  holy  see,  instead  of  acceding  to  his  re- 
quest for  a  division,  named  the  Rev.  James  Frederic 
Wood,  a  native  of  Philadelphia,  a  bank  clerk  in  his  youth 
and  a  convert  to  the  church,  as  coadjutor  to  Bishop  Neu- 
mann. His  consecration  took  place  in  Cincinnati  April 
25,  1857.  In  the  hands  of  the  coadjutor  Bishop  Neu- 
mann left  entirely  the  onerous  task  of  carrying  on  the 
building  of  the  magnificent  cathedral  begun  by  his  prede- 
cessor. Bishop  Kenrick.  The  saintly  Neumann  did  not 
live  to  see  the  work  completed ;  he  fell  and  died  suddenly 
in  Vine  Street,  January  5,  i860.  The  holy,  mortified  life 
of  Bishop  Neumann,  his  complete  detachment  from  all 
earthly  things,  his  purity  and  devotedness,  had  impressed 
all  with  a  belief  in  his  great  sanctity.  His  intercession 
was  sought  by  the  afflicted  m  body  and  soul,  and,  it 
appears,  not  without  relief  in  many  cases.  So  general 
was  the  confidence  and  so  marked  the  favors  received  that 


438  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvt. 

the  preliminary  steps  for  his  canonization  were  begun. 
The  cause  was  duly  introduced  in  the  Congregation  of 
Rites  in  December,  1888.  The  episcopal  process  was 
conducted  under  the  authority  and  guidance  of  Arch- 
bishop Ryan,  and  having  been  concluded  in  two  years 
was  transmitted  to  Rome,  where  it  was  examined  and  ap- 
proved. This,  however,  is  only  the  first  step  in  the  very 
long  investigation  that  must  take  place  before  the  cause  is 
brought  to  completion. 

On  assuming  charge.  Bishop  Wood  found  in  the  diocese 
one  hundred  and  fifty  churches,  one  hundred  and  forty- 
two  priests,  a  flourishing  theological  seminary,  and  a 
Catholic  population  estimated  at  two  hundred  thousand. 
Under  Bishop  Wood's  able  financial  management  many 
churches  were  built  throughout  the  diocese,  and  the 
magnificent  cathedral  was  brought  to  completion  and 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  God  November  20,  1864. 
There  was  another  work  with  which  his  name  shall  be  for- 
ever associated.  At  Overbrook,  in  a  valuable  piece  of 
ground,  he  laid  (December  5,  1865)  the  corner-stone  of  a 
new  diocesan  seminary  which  is  to-day  one  of  the  grand- 
est establishments  of  the  kind  in  the  land. 

The  diocese  of  Pittsburg  under  Bishop  O'Connor  had 
been  divided,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  to 
make  room  for  the  new  see  of  Erie.  After  the  division  it 
contained  a  Catholic  population  of  forty  thousand,  seventy- 
five  churches  erected  or  in  progress,  and  fifty-seven  priests. 
Bishop  O'Connor,  feeling  a  call  to  the  religious  life,  had 
from  the  very  beginning  refused  the  office  of  bishop,  but 
had  been  compelled  by  positive  orders  from  the  Pope  to 
accept  it ;  however,  he  always  yearned  for  the  mode  of 
life  to  which  he  had  given  his  first  love.  In  1857,  while 
in  Rome,  he  tried  to  escape  from  the  episcopate,  but  did 
not  succeed.     Again,  in  1 860,  he  laid  his  resignation  at  the 


BISHOP   O'CONNOR.  439 

feet  of  the  Holy  Father,  who  this  time  yielded  to  his  desire. 
Once  freed  he  entered  a  Jesuit  novitiate  in  Europe,  re- 
turned to  this  country  a  humble  religious,  and  occupied 
various  positions  in  the  society  until  his  death  (October, 
1872). 

His  successor  in  the  see  of  Pittsburg  was  the  Rev. 
Michael  Domenec,  born  in  Spain,  but  an  emigrant  to  this 
country  in  his  youth,  and  ordained  in  Missouri,  where  he 
labored  many  years  on  the  missions  in  the  West.  He 
was  consecrated  in  Pittsburg  December  9,  i860.  The 
statistics  of  the  diocese  at  the  beginning  of  1862  show 
eighty-four  churches,  eighty-two  priests,  and  an  estimated 
Catholic  population  of  fifty  thousand. 

The  diocese  of  E^rie  was  erected  July  29,  1853.  It  in- 
cluded the  counties  of  Mercer,  Venango,  Clarion,  Jefferson, 
Clearfield,  Elk,  McKeon,  and  Potter,  and  as  much  of 
Pennsylvania  as  lay  north  and  west  of  them.  Here,  in  the 
last  days  of  France's  struggle  to  maintain  her  hold  in 
North  America,  had  been  a  line  of  military  posts,  and 
Catholic  chaplains  offered  the  holy  sacrifice  from  Presqu 
Isle  (Erie)  to  Fort  Du  Quesne  (Pittsburg).  At  the  time  of 
its  erection  Erie  had  twenty-eight  churches,  with  fourteen 
priests,  and  twelve  thousand  Catholics.  For  a  short  time 
Bishop  O'Connor  left  Pittsburg  and  occupied  the  see  of 
Erie ;  but  as  the  candidate  elected  to  replace  him  in 
Pittsburg  refused  to  accept  that  charge,  Bishop  O'Connor 
was  transferred  back  to  his  original  see,  and  the  candidate 
elected  for  Pittsburg,  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Young,  was  sent  to 
Erie.  He  was  consecrated  in  Cincinnati  April  23,  1864. 
Josue  M.  Young  was  a  native  of  Shapleigh,  Me.,  born 
October  29,  1808,  brought  up  without  the  slightest  ray  of 
Catholic  truth,  and  trained  to  the  art  of  printing,  appar- 
ently not  the  path  to  lead  to  a  miter  in  the  Catholic 
Church.      A  Catholic  fellow-printer  working   by  his   side 


440  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [CHAf.  xxvl. 

was  often  the  butt  of  jokes,  in  which  Young  joined.  But 
the  CathoHc  was  able  to  explain  and  defend  his  belief  and 
turn  the  laugh.  So  impressed  was  Young  that  he  began 
to  read  and  examine,  and  gradually  his  mind  cleared.  In 
1827,  while  working  in  Portland,  he  heard  of  the  coming 
of  Bishop  Fenwick,  and  through  his  old  fellow-typographer 
sought  an  interview.  Bishop  Fenwick  at  once  understood 
his  case.  Young  vvas  soon  convinced  that  the  Catholic 
was  the  one  true  faith,  and  sought  admission  within  its 
fold.  He  resolved  to  become  a  priest,  and,  proceeding 
to  Cincinnati,  went  through  the  necessary  studies  and  was 
ordained  in  1837.  Twenty-seven  years  afterward  he 
became  Bishop  of  Erie.  In  1861  the  diocese  contained 
twenty-one  priests,  thirty-eight  churches,  and  during  the 
years  of  the  war  seven  more  were  built.  Bishop  Young 
died  suddenly  September  18,  1866. 

The  diocese  of  Richmond  under  Bishop  McGill  had  in 
the  year  1855  ten  priests;  between  that  year  and  i860 
about  nine  churches  were  built.  For  reasons  already 
alluded  to  there  was  no  immigration  to  the  South  and 
consequently  no  great  increase  of  Catholicity.  Moreover, 
during  the  Civil  War  Virginia  became  the  theater  of  the 
greatest  and  bloodiest  battles  of  that  memorable  conflict, 
the  tramping-ground  for  the  armies  of  the  South  and  the 
North.  As  a  very  large  number  of  the  soldiers  on  both 
sides  were  Catholics,  Catholic  army  chaplains  were  fre- 
quently within  the  limits  of  the  diocese,  and  Sisters  of 
Charity  were  in  attendance  on  the  sick  and  wounded  in 
camp  and  hospital.  Wherever  there  were  woe  and  misery 
and  disease  the  Catholic  priest  and  the  religious  woman 
were  ready  to  do  the  works  of  mercy.  It  was  only  after 
the  surrender  of  Lee  at  Appomattox  that  the  bishop  was 
able  to  visit  his  diocese.  The  condition  of  the  church  no 
less  than  of  the    State  was   heartrending.      War  is  essen- 


PIUS  IX.    AA'D    THE    CONFEDERACY.  44 1 

tial.ly  cruel,  and  amid  its  wild  ravages  churches  and  schools, 
had  been  injured  and  ruined  ;  but  with  peace  came  a  new- 
era  of  prosperity  to  desolate  Virginia,  and  the  church 
slowly  repaired  her  losses. 

The  diocese  of  Wheeling,  when  Bishop  Whelan  took 
possession,  contained  four  churches,  two  priests,  a  few 
students,  a  convent,  a  boys'  and  girls'  school,  and  five  or 
six  thousand  Catholics.  A  few  years  later,  when  the  Civil 
War  broke  out,  there  were  in  the  diocese  nine  priests,  and 
about  nine  more  churches,  mostly  small  chapels,  had  been 
built.  Like  the  rest  of  Virginia,  this  western  portion  that 
formed  the  diocese  of  Wheeling  was  the  theater  of  military 
operations,  and  suffered  immensely.  All  church  advance 
came  to  a  standstill  during  the  terrible  conflict.  But  after 
the  cessation  of  hostilities  a  new  period  began  for  the 
diocese.  West  Virginia  was  detached  from  eastern  Vir- 
ginia to  form  *a  new  State ;  slavery  ceased,  mining  and 
industry  prospered.  In  1866  the  diocese,  comprising  the 
State  of  West  Virginia,  numbered  twenty-three  churches, 
sixteen  priests,  eight  ecclesiastical  students,  a  college,  three 
female  academies,  an  orphan  asylum,  and  a  Catholic  pop- 
ulation of  about  fifteen  thousand. 

After  the  death  of  Bishop  Reynolds  the  diocese  of 
Charleston  was  intrusted  to  the  Rev.  Patrick  N.  Lynch,  a 
native  of  Ireland,  but  educated  and  ordained  and  laboring 
as  a  priest  for  many  years  in  South  Carolina.  He  was 
consecrated  in  Charleston  March  14,  1858.  No  diocese 
suffered  so  much  from  the  Civil  War  as  that  of  Charleston. 
The  cathedral,  with  the  adjoining  priests'  residence,  the 
convent,  and  the  orphan  asylum  were  burned  ;  the  churches 
throughout  the  State  were  occupied  for  military  putposes. 
It  was  through  the  agency  of  Bishop  Lynch  while  he  was 
in  Rome  (1864)  that  Pius  IX.  addressed  to  Jefferson 
Davis,  President  of  the  Confederate  States,  a  letter  which 


442  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxvi. 

certain  persons  of  late  have  sought  to  interpret  as  an  offi- 
cial recognition  of  the  Confederacy.  The  New  York 
"  Independent"  (April  4,  1895),  to  cite  no  other  author- 
ity, effectually  disposed  of  that  interpretation.  The 
document  was  a  personal  letter  and  carried  with  it  no 
political  significance.  While  he  was  in  Rome  Bishop 
Lynch  made  to  the  Propaganda  the  official  report  on  the 
condition  of  his  diocese :  the  Catholics  in  Charleston  were 
1 1,000,  in  Columbia,  2000,  in  Sumter,  600,  in  Wilmington, 
N.  C,  1200,  and  smaller  numbers  in  other  places — a  total 
of  20,000  in  the  two  Carolinas,  served  by  fifteen  priests. 
After  the  end  of  the  war  he  returned  home,  to  find  that  he 
must  begin  anew,  so  to  speak,  the  work  of  his  predecessors 
in  the  building  up  of  churches  and  schools,  and  he  set 
about  doing  it  with  a  brave  heart. 

In  1857  the  holy  see  detached  Florida  from  the  see  of 
Savannah  and  erected  it  into  a  vicariate  apostolic.  At  the 
time  Savannah  was  vacant  by  the  death  of  Bishop  Rey- 
nolds, whose  successor,  the  Rev.  John  Barry,  was  conse- 
crated in  Baltimore  August  2,  1857.  He  was  sixty-seven 
years  old,  for  thirty-two  years  he  had  been  a  missionary 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  his  health  was  seriously  under- 
mined. He  died  in  Paris,  whither  he  went  to  recuperate 
his  shattered  forces,  November  21,  1859. 

The  vicariate  of  Florida,  comprising  the  country  east  of 
the  Appalachicola  River,  was  intrusted  to  the  Rev. 
Augustine  Verot,  a  Sulpitian  professor  in  the  theological 
seminary  of  Baltimore.  The  number  of  Catholics  in  Flor- 
ida was  small  and  the  hope  of  increase  limited.  There 
were  only  seven  churches  and  two  priests  in  the  vicariate. 
From  a  visit  to  Europe  in  1859  Bishop  Verot  brought  back 
six  more,  some  Christian  Brothers,  and  sisters  for  the 
schools.  After  the  death  of  the  Bishop  of  Savannah,  the 
Rt.  Rev.  John  Barry,  he  was  transferred  to  that  see  (1861), 


TliE  SOUTHWEST.  443 

retaining,  meanwhile,  charge  of  the  vicariate  of  Florida. 
Both  States  under  his  jurisdiction  sufifered  much  during 
the  Civil  War  in  damage  done  to  churches  and  other  insti- 
tutions, and  in  the  decimating  by  death  on  the  battle- 
field and  in  the  hospital  of  the  Catholic  Georgians  and 
Floridians  who  fought  for  the  "  cause  that  was  lost." 

To  resume,  in  one  word  :  the  condition  of  the  province 
of  Baltimore  during  this  period  was  one  of  standstill  in 
religious  growth  and  of  no  small  material  loss  from  the 
terrible  ordeal  through  which  it  passed  during  the  memo- 
rable conflict. 

The  condition  of  the  diocese  of  New  Orleans  is  described 
as  follows  by  Archbishop  Blanc  in  a  report  made  by  him 
while  in  Rome  (1853)  to  the  Propaganda.  It  contained 
forty-four  quasi-parishes,  each  with  a  church  and  one  or  two 
priests.  The  city  had  eighteen  churches.  The  diocese 
had  a  seminary,  under  the  priests  of  the  mission,  with  an 
average  of  nine  students.  The  Catholic  population,  made 
up  of  Americans,  French,  Irish,  Germans,  Spaniards,  and 
Italians,  was  estimated  at  sixty- five  thousand.  Two  Pro- 
vincial Councils,  in  1856  and  1859,  were  held  by  him, 
attended  by  his  sufTragans,  the  Bishops  of  Mobile,  Gal- 
veston, Little  Rock,  and  Natchitoches.  Old  age  and  its 
infirmities  could  not  prevent  the  apostolic  zeal  of  Arch- 
bishop Blanc  from  undertaking  the  onerous  task  of  admin- 
istering and  visiting  his  diocese  in  the  midst  of  physical 
weakness  and  pain.  He  succumbed  to  his  constant  labors 
June  20,  i860.  Bishop  Odin,  of  Galveston,  became  his 
successor.  The  Civil  War,  from  which  New  Orleans 
suffered  more  than  any  other  city  in  the  Union,  checked 
all  progress  in  church  affairs;  when  the  time  for  the 
Second  Plenary  Council  had  come,  the  statistics  of  1866 
did  not  show  much  advance  on  those  of  1853. 

The  diocese  of  Natchitoches  was  formed  in  1853,  taking 


444  THE  kOMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xXvt. 

from  New  Orleans  the  part  of  the  State  of  Louisiana  be- 
tween the  thirty-first  and  the  thirty-second  degrees  of  lati- 
tude. Within  that  district  there  were  twenty-five  thousand 
Catholics,  five  priests,  and  seven  churches.  The  bishop 
elected  was  Augustus  Mary  Martin.  New  life  came  with 
Bishop  Martin ;  churches  were  built,  priests  from  France 
answered  his  call,  and  the  future  looked  bright,  when  the 
war  came  to  stop  all  progress  for  a  while. 

The  diocese  of  Little  Rock,  far  away  from  the  routes  of 
immigration,  progressed  more  slowly  than  any  other  in  the 
Union.  Add  to  this  the  woes  of  the  war,  which  filled 
Arkansas  with  confusion  and  battles.  In  1861  there  were 
in  the  diocese  but  nine  priests  and  eleven  churches.  After 
Bishop  B3^rne's  death  (June  10,  1862)  the  Re\'.  Edward 
Fitzgerald  was  consecrated  his  successor  (February  3, 
1867). 

Bishop  Van  de  Velde,  transferred  from  Chicago  to 
Natchez  in  July,  1853,  did  not  long  survive  the  transfer; 
he  died  in  Natchez  November  13,  1855.  His  successor 
was  the  Rev.  William  Henry  Elder,  consecrated  in  Balti- 
more, his  native  city,  January  9,  1857.  He  found  in  his 
diocese  but  nine  priests.  The  war  desolated  the  diocese. 
Though  the  sisters  and  priests  gave  their  untiring  services, 
and  not  a  few  their  lives,  to  the  nursing  of  the  sick  and 
wounded  from  both  sides  in  the  conflict,  yet  insults,  which 
we  refrain  from  detailing,  were  not  spared  to  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  church.  The  war  over,  churches,  mis- 
sions, and  schools  had  to  be  rebuilt,  repaired,  and  set  on 
foot  anew.  ^ 

Bishop  Portier's  long  episcopate  came  to  an  end  in 
Mobile  May  14,  1859.  His  successor  was  the  Rev.  John 
Ouinlan.  This  was  one  of  the  oldest  dioceses  in  the 
country,  yet  in  1861  it  liad  but  sixteen  priests — slow  prog- 
ress compared  to  the  giant  strides  made  in  the  Northwest 


SCHOOL   LAW  IN   TEXAS.  445 

States.      Want   of  immigrants   and   the   evils  of   the   war 
account  for  this  state  of  things. 

The  diocese  of  Galveston,  comprising  the  State  of 
Texas,  u^as  the  only  Southern  diocese  that  was  receiving 
a  share  of  the  immigration  of  the  period.  Moreover,  in 
1858  the  legislature  passed  a  school  law  that  was  an  hon- 
orable exception  in  the  whole  country,  and  that  had  much 
to  do  in  attracting  Catholics.  According  to  this  law  all 
schools  giving  gratuitous  tuition  were  entitled  to  share  in 
the  school  fund.  Teachers  were  to  be  examined  and  were 
to  obtain  certificates  of  competency,  and  the  schools  were 
to  be  visited  and  examined  by  a  board,  to  determine  the 
proficiency  of  the  scholars  and  the  number  to  be  credited 
to  each  school.  As  an  e\idence  of  the  growth  of  the 
church  under  such  favorable  circumstances,  and  of  the 
vast  labors  of  Bishop  Odin,  let  it  be  recorded  that  in  1858 
he  made  a  fiv^e-months'  visitation  of  the  State,  traveling 
eighteen  hundred  miles  and  confirming  3415  persons.  In 
1 86 1  he  was  transferred  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  New 
Orleans,  vacated  by  the  death  of  Archbishoj)  Blanc.  His 
suct:essor  in  Galveston,  the  Rev.  Claude  Marie  Uubuis, 
was  consecrated  November  23,  1862.  The  following  year 
he  confirmed  more  than  fi\e  thousand  persons.  In  1866 
there  were  in  the  diocese  forty-four  priests,  fifty-five 
churches,  and  about  fifty-five  thousand  Catholics. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  NORTH  ( 1 85 2-66). 

The  North  contained  the  provinces  of  New  York,  Cin- 
cinnati, St.  Louis,  and  Oregon. 

Province  of  Nezv   York. 

In  1853  the  dioceses  of  Brooklyn  and  Newark  were 
set  off  from  that  of  New  York,  leaving  to  the  parent  see 
the  city  of  New  York  and  the  counties  of  Westchester, 
Putnam,  Dutchess,  Rockland,  Orange,  Ulster,  Sullivan, 
and  Richmond.  Within  that  district  there  were  about 
fifty  churches  and  more  than  a  hundred  priests.  The 
Catholics  of  the  diocese  were  estimated  at  about  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty  thousand,  more  than  half  the  churches 
and  people  being  in  the  city  of  New  York.  As  the  great 
port  of  the  United  States,  the  city  received  nearly  two 
thirds  of  all  the  immigrants  reaching  the  country,  and 
though  many  intended  to  proceed  to  Western  homes,  a 
considerable  number  lingered  there  for  a  time.  They  re- 
quired church  accommodations,  priestly  aid,  and  very  often 
relief. 

With  such  a  man  at  the  head  of  the  diocese  as  Arch- 
bishop Hughes  it  is  no  wonder  that  churches  and  priests 
were  multiplied  with  amazing  rapidity.  To  go  into  details 
would  be  to  carry  us  beyond  all  bounds.  Between  the 
years  1854  and  1861  he  held  three  Provincial  Councils 
with   suffragans,  the  Bishops   of  Albany,  Boston,  Buffalo, 

446 


POLITICAL  MISSION  Of  AKCIIJUSlIOr  HUGHES.      447 

Hartford,  Brooklyn,  Newark,  and  Burlington,  at  which 
much  wise  legislation,  needed  by  the  conditions 'of  time 
and  place,  was  enacted.  On  August  15,  1858,  he  laid 
the  corner-stone  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  that  grandest 
ecclesiastical  monument  in  our  country,  choosing  a  site 
far  beyond  the  inhabited  quarters  of  the  city,  to  the 
astonishment  and  even  the  merriment  of  men  less  far- 
sighted  than  himself.  In  1863  he  undertook  the  establish- 
ment of  another  institution,  which  has  grown  to  be  one  of 
high  importance  and  vast  influence  in  the  diocese,  the 
Protectory  of  Westchester,  a  home  and  school  for  destitute 
children.  And  yet  another  institution  must  be  put  to  his 
credit,  the  purchase  of  a  former  Methodist  university  at 
Troy,  which  was  converted  into  the  theological  seminary 
of  the  province. 

His  administration  had  shown  him  to  be  a  great  church- 
man. The  Civil  War  showed  him  to  be  a  great  patriot. 
This  is  proved  not  only  by  his  encouragement  to  the  Irish 
military  organizations  of  New  York  to  march  to  the  front, 
by  his  correspondence  and  writings  on  the  war  and  its 
causes,  but  also  by  his  semi-official  diplomatic  mission 
to  secure  the  neutrality  of  Europe  during  the  conflict. 
"There  arose  a  danger,"  says  John  Gilmary  Shea,  "  of  the 
recognition  of  the  Confederate  States  by  the  governments 
of  Europe,  and  after  the  Trent  afi'air  there  came  the  fear 
that  England  might  go  even  further.  The  United  States 
gevernment,  which  had  faltered  about  receiving  an  arch- 
bishop as  envoy  from  the  Pope,  now  earnestly  desired 
Archbishop  Hughes  to  go  to  Europe  as  envoy  of  the 
United  States.  He  absolutely  declined  to  accept  any 
ot^cial  position,  but  expressed  his  willingness  to  use  all  his 
efforts  to  prevent  the  prolongation  of  the  war  and  the 
greater  eff'usion  of  human  blood. 

"He  sailed  for  Europe  in  November,  1861,  and  pro- 


448  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

ceeded  to  Pans.  There  he  had  interviews  with  the  mem- 
bers of  the  ministry,  and  was  honorably  received  by  the 
,  archbishop.  After  some  delay  he  obtained  an  interview 
with  the  emperor,  Napoleon  III.,  and  placed  before  him 
in  a  clear  light  the  real  position  of  affairs  in  America,  and 
showed  that  it  was  for  the  interest  of  France  to  adhere 
to  her  long  course  of  amity  with  the  government  of  the 
United  States.  The  impression  he  produced  was  such 
that  he  went  further,  and  urged  the  emperor  to  act,  if 
necessary,  as  arbitrator  between  the  United  States  and 
England  in  the  difficulty  which  had  arisen.  The  influence 
that  Archbishop  Hughes  produced  on  the  councils  of 
France  at  this  juncture  is  undeniable,  and  was  full}^  recog- 
nized at  Washington.  On  reaching  Paris  he  wrote  to 
Cardinal  Barnabo  to  explain  the  nature  of  his  mission,  and 
after  concluding  his  work  in  Paris  proceeded  to  Rome. 
Though  many  had  censured  the  archbishop,  he  found  that 
Cardinals  Antonelli  and  Barnabo  and  the  Pope  himself 
approved  of  his  conduct." 

One  of  his  last  public  acts  was  to  address  his  flock  of 
New  York  in  fa\^or  of  the  government  at  the  time  of  the 
draft  riots,  though  the  forces  of  his  life  were  w-ell-nigh 
spent.  He  died  January  3,  1864.  Thus  ended  the  most 
remarkable,  the  most  vigorous,  the  most  patriotic  prelate 
the  country  had  known  since  John  Carroll.  His  figure  in 
history  will  gain  in  grandeur  as  it  recedes  with  time ;  it  is 
not  at  this  day  in  that  perspective  necessary  to  reveal  -its 
true  proportions. 

The  diocese  of  Albany  under  the  administration  of 
Bishop  McCloskey  was  constantly  growing  with  the  in- 
coming immigration ;  its  churches  and  institutions  were 
increasing  so  rapidly  that  in  1861  it  contained  ninety 
priests,  one  hundred  and  seventeen  churches,  twenty-seven 
parochial  schools,  and  six  orphan  asylums.     When  Bishop 


DIOCESE   or  nROOKLVX.  449 

McCloskey  was  transferred  (1864)  to  New  York  to  become 
the  successor  of  Archbishop  Hughes,  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Conroy 
was  named  to  the  see  of  Albany  and  consecrated  October 
15,  1865. 

The  diocese  of  Buffalo  was  tormented  by  the  last  rem- 
nants of  trusteeism  in  the  land.  The  trustees  of  the  St. 
Louis  Church  (German)  in  Buffalo  had  stood  out  against 
Archbishop  Hughes  before  the  erection  of  the  see  of  Buf- 
falo, and  were  in  open  rebellion  against  the  first  bishop 
of  the  see,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Timon.  The  papal  nuncio, 
Archbishop  Bedini,  had  among  other  affairs  the  mission 
of  settling  this  question.  He  failed  to  bring  about  a  set- 
tlement ;  the  trustees  were  excommunicated  June  22,  1854. 
This  was  the  last  effective  blow  that  ended  trusteeism 
among  us.  Bishop  Timon  was  untiring  in  the  work  of 
administering  and  building  up  his  diocese;  churches  and 
institutions  sprang  up  as  if  by  magic.  He  passed  away 
with  a  noble  record,  April  16,  1867. 

The  diocese  of  Brooklyn,  erected  by  bull  of  July  29, 
1853,  comprised  Long  Island.  At  the  time  there  were  six 
churches  in  Brooklyn  and  two  in  Williamsburg ;  Astoria, 
Flatbush,  Flushing,  Jamaica,  and  Westburg  had  each  its 
church.  The  growth  of  Catholicity  in  this  new  diocese 
since  that  day  until  the  death  of  the  first  bishop,  in  1891, 
is  unparalleled  in  the  United  States.  He  was  the  Rt.  Rev. 
John  Loughlin,  Vicar  General  of  the  diocese  of  New  York. 
The  troubles  of  Knovv-nothingism  and  the  Civil  War  had 
no  effect  in  checking  the  constant  advance  of  the  diocese 
of  Brooklyn.  Churches,  schools  and  convents  sprang  into 
existence  year  by  year.  When  the  Second  Plenar)' 
Council  was  opened  (1866),  thirteen  years  after  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  diocese,  there  were  twenty-three  churches 
in  the  city  of  Brooklyn  and  twenty  on  the  rest  of  the 
island.     Evidently  this  phenomenal   increase  means  that 


450  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

large  numbers  of  immigrants  landing  in  New  York  found 
homes  on  the  island  across  the  East  River. 

The  see  of  Newark,  comprising  the  State  of  New  Jersey, 
erected  in  1853,  found  its  first  bishop  in  a  convert  to  the 
church,  a  scion  of  an  old  and  wealthy  American  family, 
James  Roosevelt  Bayley.  At  that  time  Newark  had  three 
churches,  the  rest  of  the  State  had  thirty,  and  in  1856 
there  were  thirty- six  priests.  A  few  spasmodic  attacks  of 
Know-nothingism  caused  but  little  trouble  to  the  church 
in  New  Jersey.  Here  the  growth  of  Catholicity,  aided  by 
immigration,  kept  pace  with  that  of  the  neighboring  dio- 
ceses of  New  York  and  Brooklyn.  In  1866  it  contained 
about  seventy-seven  churches  and  seventy  priests,  more 
than  a  doubling  in  fourteen  years. 

The  First  Plenary  Council  had  detached  from  Boston 
Vermont  and  INIaine,  the  former  forming  the  diocese  of 
Burlington,  the  latter  that  of  Portland.  This  division  left 
to  the  see  of  Boston  only  Massachusetts,  with  sixty-three 
churches  and  sixty-one  priests.  No  State  at  the  time  was 
more  deeply  imbued  with  the  anti-Catholic  spirit  that 
marked  the  times  preceding  the  war.  Many  facts  might 
be  advanced  to  prove  this  statement ;  let  this  one,  as  nar- 
rated by  John  Gilmary  Shea,  suffice : 

"  In  the  election  of  1854  the  Know-nothings  elected  the 
governor,  the  Senate,  and  every  member  of  the  House 
except  three  or  four.  In  January,  1855,  the  two  houses 
named  and  authorized  a  committee  '  to  visit  and  examine 
theological  seminaries,  boarding-schools,  academies,  nun- 
neries, con\ents,  and  other  institutions  of  a  like  character.' 
The  committee  visited  Holy  Cross  College ;  then,  adding 
several  others  to  their  number,  they  drove  to  the  Convent 
of  the  Sisters  of  Notre  Dame  at  Roxbury,  and  ransacked 
the  house  from  top  to  bottom,  treating  the  sisters  with 
the  greatest  indignity,  insolence,  and  even  indecency  ;  the 


DIOCESE    OF  BOSTOX.  45  I 

rooms  of  the  sick  pupils  were  not  respected.  A  convent 
at  Lowell  was  next  subjected  to  this  illegal  invasion  of  its 
privacy.  These  men  pretended  to  go  as  representatives 
of  the  highest  morality ;  yet  one  of  them  took  a  woman 
around  with  him,  representing  her  falsely  as  his  wife. 
The  Boston  '  Daily  Advertiser  '  denounced  in  a  scathing 
article  the  iniquity  of  the  whole  aflfair;  and  Charles  Hale, 
one  of  the  editors,  issued  '  A  Review  of  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Nunnery  Committee  of  the  Massachusetts  Legisla- 
ture,' which  circulated  widely.  Caricatures  of  the  infa- 
mous committee  helped  also  to  rouse  the  honest  people  of 
the  State  to  a  just  indignation." 

When  the  Civil  War  began,  Massachusetts  sent  to  the 
front  two  Catholic  regiments,  the  Ninth  and  the  Twenty- 
eighth,  with  Catholic  chaplains.  No  sterner  rebuke  could 
be  given  to  the  anti-Catholic  spirit  of  the  day,  no  better 
proof  of  the  loyalty  of  Catholics  to  the  United  States  and 
the  cause  of  the  republic.  Boston  no  less  than  the  other 
great  dioceses  of  the  Northern  States  kept  up  a  steady 
growth  of  Catholic  life,  urged  on  by  the  flood- tide  of  an 
immense  immigration.  On  the  eve  of  the  Second  Plenary 
Council  Bishop  Fitzpatrick,  whose  administration  had  been 
strong  and  fruitful,  was  carried  away  (February  13,  1866) 
by  a  disease  that  had  been  undermining  his  vigorous  con- 
stitution for  many  years. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Bernard  O'Reilly,  Bishop  of  Hartford, 
was  lost  at  sea  in  the  steamer  "  Pacific  "  three  years  after 
the  First  Plenary  Council  (1856).  At  the  time  of  his 
death  the  diocese  numbered  fifty-five  thousand  Catholics, 
thirty-seven  churches,  and  thirty-nine  priests.  He  was 
succeeded  (March  14,  1858)  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  P^rancis  P. 
McFarland.  In  Connecticut  we  meet  with  the  anti-Cath- 
olic movement  of  the  time,  and  also  with  a  pointed  rebuke 
given   to   it   by  the  devotedness  and   bravery  of  Catholic 


452  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

soldiers  when  the  call  to  battle  came.  Wherever  they 
stood  before  the  foe  these  Catholic  soldiers  proved  that 
they  were  the  worthiest  of  the  worthy  soldiers  of  their 
State.  In  1866,  at  the  opening  of  the  Second  Plenary 
Council,  the  diocese  of  Hartford  contained  fifty-six 
churches  and  forty  priests  for  Connecticut,  eighteen 
churches  and  twenty-four  priests  for  Rhode  Island. 

Vermont  w^as  erected  into  a  diocese  in  1853,  wath  the 
see  at  Burlington ;  and  the  bishop  chosen  was  Louis  de 
Goesbriand,  a  descendant  from  a  noble  family  of  Brittany, 
France,  who  since  1840,  the  date  of  his  ordination,  had 
labored  in  the  diocese  of  Cincinnati.  At  the  time  of  its 
erection  the  diocese  had  churches  at  Montpelier,  St.  Al- 
bans, Fairfield,  Swanton,  Castleton,  and  Burlington,  with 
five  priests.  Immediately  after  his  consecration  the  bishop 
went  to  France  for  more  recruits.  On  his  return  evidences 
of  energy  and  progress  appeared  on  all  sides.  In  Decem- 
ber, 1867,  the  beautiful  cathedral  of  Burlington  was  com- 
pleted, and  many  churches  arose  throughout  the  State. 
In  1866  the  diocese  had  nineteen  priests,  twenty-seven 
churches,  and  a  Catholic  population  of  twenty-eight 
thousand. 

Portland  was  also  an  erection  of  1853;  it  comprised 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire;  its  first  bishop  was  the  Rev. 
David  W.  Bacon.  Maine  was  classic  ground  for  the 
church,  having  been  a  field  of  early  Jesuit  missions.  Two 
Abenaki  tribes,  the  Penobscots  and  the  Passamaquoddies, 
the  fruits  of  their  labors,  were  still  Christian.  New 
Hampshire  was  the  one  State  in  the  Union  that  still 
ostracized  Catholics  from  the  legislature  and  all  high 
offices,  and  continued  the  ostracism  down  to  our  own 
days.  Both  States  at  this  time  were  filled  with  Know- 
nothingism.  Many  acts  of  violence  against  Catholics  were 
perpetrated ;  the  most  disgraceful  of  all  was  the  railing,  tar- 


KNOIV-NOTHIKGISM  IN  KENTUCKY.  453 

ring,  and  feathering  at  Ellsworth,  Me.,  of  Father  Bapst,  S.J., 
the  missionary  among  the  Indians,  in  1854.  Yet  the 
anti- Catholic  opposition  could  not  check  the  onward  prog- 
ress of  the  church.  In  1866  there  were  in  the  diocese 
forty-five  churches,  twenty-nine  priests,  and  forty-five 
thousand  Catholics. 

Province  of  Cincinnati. 

The  province  of  Cincinnati  had  as  suffragans,  as  evi- 
denced by  its  First  Provincial  Council,  held  May  13,  1855, 
Rt.  Rev.  Peter  Lefevre,  Administrator  of,  Detroit,  Rt.  Rev. 
Amadeus  Rappe,  Bishop  of  Cleveland,  Rt.  Rev.  Martin 
John  Spalding,  Bishop  of  Louisville,  Rt.  Rev.  George 
Aloysius  Carrell,  Bishop  of  Covington,  Rt.  Rev.  Frederic 
Baraga,  Bishop  of  Amyzonium  /;/  partihns  infidelinni,  and 
Vicar  Apostolic  of  Upper  Michigan,  and  Bishop  St.  Palais, 
of  Vincennes,  who  was  unable  to  attend.  Here,  as 
throughout  the  whole  West,  the  progress  of  the  church 
was  only  little  less  than  in  the  great  dioceses  of  the 
Atlantic  coast.  In  1857  the  Catholic  population  of  the 
diocese  of  Cincinnati  was  computed  at  277,680.  The 
Civil  War,  though  the  southern  border  of  the  State  of 
Ohio  was  on  the  verge  of  its  theater,  did  not  materially 
retard  the  advance  of  Catholicity.  In  1862  Archbishop 
Purcell,  on  whom  his  thirty-two  years  of  arduous  epis- 
copate were  beginning  to  tell,  solicited  and  obtained  as 
coadjutor  the  Rev.  Sylvester  H.  Rosecrans,  a  convert  to 
the  church  and  brother  of  the  well-known  general  of  that 
name.  In  1866  the  diocese  had  one  hundred  and  fifty 
priests  and  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  churches. 

The  diocese  of  Cleveland  under  the  able  administration 
of  Bishop  Rappe,  and  with  the  constant  inflow  of  immi- 
grants, had  its  share  of  the  general  religious  prosperity  of 
the  period.     When  the  diocese  was  formed  there  were  in 


454  ^-^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

it  only  seventeen  priests  and  twenty-five  churches.  At 
the  end  of  nine  years  it  had  fifty  priests  and  eighty 
churches,  and  in  the  next  ten  years  fifty-six  churches 
were  added. 

The  see  of  Bardstown  had  been  transferred  to  Louis- 
ville. A  cathedral  was  needed  there.  Begun  in  1849,  it 
was  completed  and  consecrated  in  October,  1852.  Out 
of  the  diocese  of  Louisville,  at  the  request  of  the  Plenary 
Council,  was  formed  the  diocese  of  Covington.  This 
division  left  the  diocese  of  Louisville  with  that  part  of  the 
State  of  Kentucky  lying  west  of  the  Kentucky  River. 
Here  the  anti-Catholic  lodges  of  Know-nothingism  were 
active,  and  resorted  to  acts  of  violence  that  have  left  a 
stain  on  the  State. 

"  We  have  just  passed  through  a  reign  of  terror,"  writes 
Bishop  Spalding,  "  surpassed  only  by  the  Philadelphia 
riots.  Nearly  a  hundred  poor  Lish  and  Germans  have 
been  butchered  or  burned,  and  some  twenty  houses  have 
been  fired  and  burned  to  the  ground.  The  city  authori- 
ties, all  Know-nothings,  looked  calmly  on,  and  they  are 
now  endeavoring  to  lay  the  blame  on  the  Catholics." 

"  It  may  be  said,"  writes  Bishop  Spalding  in  "  The  Life 
of  Archbishop  Spalding,"  "  of  the  whole  anti-Catholic 
crusade  of  that  day  that  the  result  was  favorable  to  the 
church.  A  few  narrow-minded  bigots,  whose  ignorance 
was  probably  invincible,  were  really  alarmed  for  the  safet}- 
of  the  Bible  and  the  country,  and  were  terribly  in  earnest 
in  seeking  to  stamp  out  from  the  American  soil  every 
trace  of  Catholicism.  They  were  joined  by  the  mob  of 
European  infidels  and  radicals,  and  by  the  rabble  formed 
by  the  sloughing  of  our  social  sores,  and  this  horrid  mass 
of  mental  obliquity  and  moral  turpitude  called  itself  the 
American  party.  The  American  people  rose  up  and  trod 
it  underfoot. 


THE    CHURCH  IN  KEMrUCKV.  455 

"  They  felt  that  CathoHcs  had  been  wantonly  insulted, 
grossly  outraged  ;  and  that  sympathy  which  the  bra\'e  and 
the  manly  always  have  for  the  wronged  took  the  place  of 
what  had  been  aversion,  or,  at  least,  indifference.  We 
have  been  making  rapid  strides  ever  since,  with  renewed 
confidence  in  our  fellow-countrymen,  increased  reverence 
for  the  institutions  which  God  has  given  us,  and  the  abid- 
ing conviction  that  no  evil,  not  self-cauSed,  will  e\'er  befall 
us  in  this  free  land." 

Kentucky,  being  a  border  State,  suffered  much  during 
the  Civil  War.  Yet  there  was  a  compensation  for  all  this 
suffering :  a  splendid  opportunity  was  offered  to  our  priests 
and  sisters  to  exhibit  to  the  country  on  the  field  of  battle 
and  in  the  hospital  and  the  military  prison  the  noble  dis- 
interestedness of  charity.  If  material  progression  in  church 
affairs  was  simply  impossible  during  this  period,  a  spirit- 
ual progression  through  Christian  and  patriotic  devoted- 
ness,  the  very  best  answer  to  anti-Catholic  prejudices,  was 
inaugurated  and  still  continues  in  its  eft'ects.  God  drew 
good  out  of  evil.  In  July,  1864,  after  the  death  of  Arch- 
bishop Kenrick,  Bishop  Spalding  was  transferred  to  the 
primatial  see  of  Baltimore.  He  was  succeeded  (Septem- 
ber, 1865)  by  the  Rev.  Peter  John  Lavialle,  who  did  not 
long  survive  his  consecration.  He  died  in  October,  1866, 
after  having  attended  the  Second  Plenary  Council. 

The  diocese  of  Covington,  erected  July,  1853,  contained 
that  portion  of  Kentucky  lying  east  of  the  Kentucky 
River.  The  Catholic  population  within  this  district  did 
not  exceed  seven  thousand.  George  Aloj-sius  Carrell,  a 
member  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  a  native  of  Philadelphia, 
was  chosen  for  the  see  and  consecrated  in  Cincinnati 
November  i,  1853.  The  part  of  Kentuck}-  in  the  diocese 
of  Covington  was  affected  by  the  Civil  War  no  less  than 
that    part    in    the   diocese   of   Louisville.      However,   the 


456  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  \-xvtt. 

statistics  at  the  time  of  Bishop  Carrell's  death  (September 
25,  1868),  soon  after  the  Second  Plenary  Council,  show  a 
progress  remarkable  for  the  adverse  circumstances  of  the 
l^eriod :  forty-two  churches,  thirty  priests,  and  a  Catholic 
population  of  about  thirty  thousand. 

The  diocese  of  Detroit  had  been  narrowed  in  territory 
by  the  erection  (1853)  of  the  vicariate  of  Upper  Michigan, 
placed  in  care  of  Bishop  Baraga.  Michigan  did  not  attract 
at  this  time  as  much  immigration  as  the  other  Western 
States,  yet  there  was  some  growth  of  Catholic  population. 
In  1866  there  were  in  the  diocese  sixty-two  priests,  sixty- 
four  churches,  and  a  Catholic  population  of  ninety  thou- 
sand. Bishop  Baraga,  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Upper 
Michigan,  a  descendant  of  a  noble  Carrtiola  family,  had 
labored  as  a  missionary  since  1830  among  the  Indians 
of  that  territory  with  wonderful  success.  Meanwhile  the 
mines  of  the  Lake  Superior  country  had  attracted  many 
whites,  so  that  at  the  time  of  its  erection  the  vicariate 
contained  six  churches  and  five  priests.  In  1857  the 
vicariate  was  formed  into  a  diocese,  with  the  see  at  Sault 
Ste.  Marie.  By  this  time  the  territory  under  Bishop  Bara- 
ga's care  contained  twenty-three  churches,  sixteen  priests, 
and  sixty-five  hundred  Catholics.  While  giving  to  the 
whites  the  attention  that  their  numbers  demanded,  the 
saintly  bishop  did  not  neglect  his  Indian  children.  The 
Honorable  Commissioner  for  Indian  Affairs,  in  his  reports 
(1853-66),  recognized  more  than  once  the  services  of  this 
eminent  missionary  in  Christianizing  and  elevating  the 
tribes  of  Michigan.  Bishop  Baraga  had  from  the  outset 
of  his  missionary  career  labored  to  acquire  a  thorough  and 
complete  knowledge  of  the  Chippeway  and  Ottawa  lan- 
guages. He  published  an  Otchipwe  grammar  in  1850,  a 
dictionary  in  1853  (both  reprinted  in  Canada  in  1878),  and 
Prayer-books  in  Ottawa   and    Chippeway  in    1832,  1837, 


THE  cnvkcn  /.v  the  west.  457 

1842,  and  1846;  a  "  Life  of  Christ  "  in  Chippeway  in  1837  ; 
"  Bible  Extracts,"  "  Catholic  Christian  Meditations,"  and 
"  Eternal  Truths  "  in  Chippeway  in  1850;  and  even  issued 
pastoral  letters  in  Chippeway.  Pilling,  in  his  "  Indian 
Bibliography,"  gives  him  due  credit  for  all  these  works. 

The  diocese  of  Vincennes  under  Bishop  de  St.  Palais 
was  enriched  with  many  useful  institutions  and  gained 
steadily  in  churches  and  population,  unhampered,  most 
fortunately,  by  any  violent  outbreaks  of  the  anti-Catholic 
movement  that  afiflicted  so  deeply  other  sections  of  the 
country.  In  1866  it  had  a  Catholic  population  of  seventy 
thousand,  one  hundred  and  ten  churches,  and  seventy-two 
priests,  and  this  after  having  given  part  of  the  State  of 
Indiana  to  a  new  see. 

This  new  see  was  Fort  Wayne,  erected  in  1857,  com- 
prising the  counties  north  of  the  fortieth  degree  of  latitude. 
It  contained,  when  established,  twenty  thousand  Catholics, 
fourteen  priests,  twenty  churches,  and  the  magnificent 
educational  establishments  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Sisters 
of  the  Holy  Cross  at  Notre  Dame.  The  Rev.  John  Henry 
Luers,  a  native  of  Westphalia,  engaged  in  missionary 
work  in  Ohio  since  1849,  was  consecrated  for  this  new  see 
January  10,  1858.  The  statistics  of  1866  show  that  there 
had  been  in  a  few  years  an  increase  of  more  than  one 
hundred  percent.,  viz.,  forty  tholisand  members,  fifty- 
seven  churches,  and  fifty-three  priests. 

Province  of  St.  Louis. 

In  1853  no  city  in  the  Union  was  so  well  provided  with 
charitable  institutions  as  St.  Louis.  It  might  not  be  amiss 
to  make  the  same  assertion  as  to  its  condition  to-day. 
Between  the  year  1853  and  the  year  1866  two  Provincial 
Councils  were  held  by  Archbishop  Kenrick,  at  which  were 


458  THE   ROMAX  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

present  his  suffragans,  the  Bishops  of  Dubuque,  Nashville, 
Milwaukee,  Chicago,  Santa  Fe,  St.  Paul,  and  the  Vicar 
Apostolic  of  the  Indian  Territory,  which  afterward  was 
divided  to  form  another  vicariate,  that  of  Nebraska.  In 
1857  the  Rev.  James  Duggan  was  consecrated  coadjutor 
to  the  archbishop,  as  a  division  of  the  diocese  of  St.  Louis 
was  not  deemed  advisable.  During  the  Civil  War  Mis- 
souri was  one  of  the  theaters  of  the  conflict.  The  political 
passions,  or  rather  the  fancied  necessities,  of  war  interfered 
in  this  State  more  than  in  any  other  with  the  religious 
liberty  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution. 

Bishop  Van  de  Velde  at  his  own  request  was  transferred 
by  the  holy  see  to  the  vacant  see  of  Natchez  in  1853. 
As  successor  to  him  in  the  see  of  Chicago  the  Rev.  An- 
thony O'Regan  was  consecrated  July  25,  1-854.  A  syste- 
matic administrator  and  strong  disciplinarian.  Bishop 
O'Regan  excited  much  dissatisfaction  among  his  clergy, 
w^hich  was  allayed  only  by  the  transfer  of  some  of  his 
priests,  very  estimable  men,  to  other  fields.  These  troubles 
and  his  unfitness  for  a  work  for  which  his  early  life  had 
not  trained  him — for  on  receiving  his  appointment  he  had 
declined  at  first,  declaring  that  he  was  only  a  bookworm 
— caused  him  to  solicit  relief  from  the  episcopal  charge. 
His  resignation  was  accepted  by  the  holy  see,  and  there- 
after he  lived  in  retirement  in  England  and  Ireland.  His 
successor  (1858)  was  the  Rt.  Rev.  James  Duggan,  the 
coadjutor  of  the  Archbishop  of  St.  Louis.  In  the  first 
years  of  his  administration  the  church  kept  pace  with 
the  phenomenal  growth  of  Chicago ;  but  he  soon  began 
•to  show  signs  of  mental  derangement  in  his  wayward 
and  unjust  treatment  of  some  of  his  best  priests,  so  that 
the  sad  necessity  imposed  itself  of  confining  him  in  an 
asylum. 

In  1853  the  diocese  of  Quincy  was  erected,  comprising 


DIOCESE    OE  NASHVILLE.  459 

southern  Illinois.  But  this  diocese  was  never  fully  organ- 
ized ;  it  remained  annexed  to  Chicago  until  the  year  1857, 
when  the  see  was  transferred  from  Quincy  to  Alton,  and 
the  Rev.  Henry  Damian  Juncker  was  appointed  its  first 
bishop.  The  war  made  the  diocese  active  with  military 
movements,  Cairo  being  a  center  of  operations.  Where 
so  many  soldiers  were  congregated  sickness  prevailed,  and 
the  wounded  from  battle-fields  were  numerous.  These 
called  for  the  charitable  ministrations  of  priests  and 
religious  women  ;  and  the  call  was  nobly  answered.  In 
1866  the  diocese  had  one  hundred  churches,  seventy-five 
priests,  and  about  seventy-five  thousand  Catholics.  Two 
years  later  (October  2,  1868)  Bishop  Juncker  died. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Richard  Pius  Miles,  the  Bishop  of  Nash- 
ville, received  as  coadjutor  (1859)  the  Rev.  James  Whelan, 
of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  and  died  a  year  later  (Feb- 
ruary 17,  i860).  The  State  of  Tennessee,  which  grew 
but  little  at  that  time  by  immigration,  was,  moreover, 
weighed  down  by  the  Ci\"il  War,  some  of  the  most  deci- 
sive and  bloody  battles  of  which  were  fought  on  its  soil. 
Here,  as  everywhere  else.  Catholic  priests  and  religious 
women  devoted  themselves  to  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
good  of  Catholics  in  the  army,  and  in  the  hospitals  the 
sisters  showed  no  distinction,  ministering  to  the  sick  and 
wounded  of  all  creeds.  Very  earl}^  in  his  episcopate 
Bishop  Whelan  resigned  and  retired  to  one  of  the  houses 
of  his  order.  The  Rev.  Patrick  Augustine  Feehan  was 
consecrated  his  successor  November  i,  1865.  Nashville 
was  in  a  deplorable  condition,  morally  and  financially. 
Every  mission  in  the  diocese  had  the  same  sad  story  of 
crushing  debt  and  scattered  flocks.  Bishop  Feehan  threw 
himself  into  the  work  of  restoration,  obtained  some  zealous 
priests,  and  by  financial  skill  put  many  churches  and  in- 
stitutions once  more  on  the  way  to  prosperity. 


46o  The  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

No  Western  diocese  had  the  great  and  rapid  growth 
during  this  period  that  fell  to  the  share  of  Milwaukee. 
Its  beautiful  cathedral  was  consecrated  in  1853  by  the 
j)apal  nuncio,  Archbishop  Bedini,  who  was  impressed  by 
the  scene,  and  by  the  fact  of  such  a  cathedral  in  a  city  and 
State  of  comparatively  recent  origin.  He  understood 
what  at  Rome  and  Vienna  had  been  a  puzzle  to  him,  the 
anxiety  of  our  bishops  to  have  suitable  cathedrals.  They 
were  required  not  only  to  enable  the  episcopal  functions 
to  be  becomingly  performed,  but  they  gave  life  and 
activity  to  the  Catholic  body,  who  looked  on  them  with 
pride ;  and  besides  this  they  impressed  those  outside  the 
fold  with  the  permanence,  solidity,  and  dignity  of  the 
ancient  church  and  its  services.  The  most  notable  work 
of  Bishop  Henni's  administration  was  the  building  up  of 
the  magnificent  ecclesiastical  Seminary  of  St.  Francis  de 
Sales,  opened  in  1856.  Remote  from  the  scene  of  war, 
Wisconsin  received  a  large  immigration,  German  and 
Catholic.  In  1866  it  had  two  hundred  and  ninety-three 
churches,  one  hundred  and  fifty  priests,  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  Catholics. 

Bishop  Loras,  of  Dubuque,  whose  health,  fast  failing, 
caused  alarm,  received  as  coadjutor  the  Rev.  Timothy 
Smyth,  of  the  Order  of  La  Trappe,  who  succeeded  him  in 
the  government  of  the  diocese  after  his  death  (February 
20,  1858).  A  diocesan  synod  held  in  i860  showed  the 
progress  of  the  diocese  since  Bishop  Loras  had  taken  in 
hand  its  formation ;  the  synod  was  composed  of  forty 
priests,  and  the  Catholic  population  was  59,156.  Bishop 
Smyth  was  seized  with  a  fatal  disease  and  died,  September 
23,  1863.  Under  his  rule  of  five  years  the  diocese  had 
so  grown  that  at  his  death  it  had  eighty  churches,  forty- 
eight  priests,  and  ninety  thousand  Catholics.  Those  fig- 
ures   reveal    better    than   anything   else   a   vast  Western 


THE   CHURCH  IN   THE  NORTHWEST.  461 

immigration.      His  successor  was  the  Rev.  John  Hennas-^ 
sey,  the  present  Archbishop  of  Dubuque. 

The  wave  of  immigration  had  reached  Minnesota.  In 
1856  the  diocese  of  St.  Paul  had  ^ihnost  fifty  thousand 
CathoHcs,  with  a  number  quite  inadequate  of  (Churches  and 
priests,  so  rapid  had  been  the  arrival  of  the  newcomers. 
The  active,  energetic  Hfe  of  Bishop  Cretin  was  brought  to 
a  close  February  22,  1857.  His  successor  was  not  conse- . 
crated  until  July  24,  1859.  The  candidate  chosen  was 
the  Rev.  Thomas  L.  Grace,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic, 
still  living,  with  the  title  of  Archbishop  of  Siunia,  in 
partibus  injidclium,  and  spending  his  declining  days  in 
the  classic  shade  of  St.  Thomas's  College,  St.  Paul,  since 
he  resigned  the  diocese  into  the  hands  of  his  coadjutor, 
now  Archbishop  Ireland.  The  Civil  War  did  not  directly 
afifect  Minnesota,  but  an  Indian  uprising  in  1862  desolated 
the  frontier  settlements  and  for  a  time  checked  the  growth 
of  the  State  and  the  diocese.  Notwithstanding,  in  1866 
it  had  seventy-two  churches,  forty-three  priests,  and  about 
seventy  thousand  Catholics. 

The  vicariate  apostolic  of  Nebraska  was  erected  in  1859, 
and  comprised  the  Territories  of  Nebraska,  Dakota,  and 
Idaho.  When  the  vicariate  of  the  Indian  Territory  had 
been  formed  it  was  supposed  to  be  for  the  Indian  missions 
only,  and  that  it  would  suffice  for  all  religious  needs  as  far 
east  as  the  Rockies  for  many  a  year.  The  great  immi- 
gration had  not  been  foreseen  and  reckoned  with.  As  the 
tide  overflowed  Iowa  and  rolled  across  the  Missouri  a  new 
diocese  loomed  up  as  a  necessity.  A  Trappist  from  the 
monastery  near  Dubuque,  James  Michael  O'Gorman,  was 
chosen  for  this  new  field,  and  consecrated  May  8,  1859. 
He  fixed  his  residence  in  Omaha.  Up  to  1866  the  prog- 
ress was  slow  and  feeble.  At  that  date  Bishop  O'Gor- 
man had  only  eight  priests  and  as  many  churches. 


462  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

The  vicariate  apostolic  of  the  Indian  Territory — so  called 
not  because  it  was  in  our  present  Indian  Territory,  which 
was  not  yet  formed,  but  because  Indian  missions  were 
supposed  to  be,  as  they  were  at  the  start,  the  main  field 
of  the  vicar  -apostolic — comprised,  after  the  erection  of  the 
vicariate  of  Nebraska,  Kansas  and  Colorado.  The  Vicar 
Apostolic  of  the  Indian  Territory,  Bishop  Miege,  resided 
at  Leavenworth,  and  in  consequence  the  vicariate  came 
to  be  called  the  vicariate  of  Kansas.  Jesuit  fathers  had 
charge  of  the  Indian  missions  in  this  district.  But  soon 
after  the  war  immigration  began  to  pour  into  Kansas  and 
Colorado,  and  before  it  the  Indians  were  driven  farther 
West.  At  the  close  of  i860  the  vicariate  of  Kansas  had 
fifteen  priests  and  sixteen  churches.  Even  during  the 
war,  which  did  not  spare  Kansas  in  its  ravages.  Catholicity 
gained.  By  1864  the  vicariate  had  twenty- five  churches, 
and  a  hospital  and  orphan  asylum  at  Leavenworth,  directed 
by  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  The  next  year  caked  Carmel- 
ites were  laboring  there  with  Jesuit,  Benedictine,  and  sec- 
ular priests. 

In  1853  the  holy  see  erected  the  vicariate  of  New  Mex- 
ico into  the  diocese  of  Santa  Fe.  By  the  Gadsden 
purchase  of  1854  Arizona  was  annexed  to  the  United 
States.  It  was  added  to  the  territory  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Bishop  of  Santa  Fe ;  and  in  1 860  Colorado  was 
detached  from  the  vicariate  of  the  Indian  Territory  and 
placed  also  in  his  care.  Within  this  vast  diocese  the 
church  made  rapid  progress  in  spite  of  the  Civil  War, 
which,  however,  affected  but  little  this  southern  district 
lying  outside  the  main  theater  of  the  conflict.  In  1865 
Bishop  Lamy  could  report  to  the  Propaganda  that  on 
reaching  New  Mexico  he  found  twenty  priests,  neglectful 
and  extortionate,  and  churches  in  ruins.  He  had  now 
thirty-seven  priests,  and  six  ecclesiastics  in  minor  orders 


THE    CHURCH  ox   THE  PACIFIC   COAST.  463 

soon  to  be  ordained,  had  built  forty-five  churches  and 
chapels,  holding  from  three  hundred  to  a  thousand  per- 
sons, and  had  repaired  eighteen  or  twenty.  He  estimated 
the  Catholics  in  New  Mexico  at  one  hundred  thousand 
(nine  thousand  being  Pueblo  Indians) ;  in  Colorado,  three 
thousand ;  in  Arizona,  five  thousand. 

Province  of  Oregon. 

For  years  this  diocese  did  not  increase  in  white  popula- 
tion;  only  a  half-dozen  priests  were  engaged  in  work 
among  them,  while  the  Jesuit  fathers  were  busy  with  the 
missions  of  the  Indians.  In  i860  the  western  part  of 
Idaho  Territory  was  added  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Arch- 
bishop Blanchet.  Here  whites  were  beginning  to  settle, 
and  the  chief  efforts  of  the  ordinary  were  directed  to  pro- 
vide them  with  priests  and  churches.  He  could  report  in 
1866  seventeen  churches  and  fourteen  priests.  In  1864 
the  residence  of  the  archbishop  and  the  title  of  the  see 
were  transferred  to  the  city  of  Portland. 

In  1853  the  diocese  of  Nesqually,  under  Bishop  Blanchet, 
brother  to  the  Archbishop  of  Portland,  had  a  Catholic 
population  of  sixteen  hundred  whites  and  four  thousand 
Indians,  the  former  in  charge  of  a  few  diocesan,  the  latter 
of  Jesuit  priests.  The  diocese  was  confined  to  Washington 
Territory  after  its  formation  in  1853.  The  Territory  of 
Montana — at  least  the  western  half  of  it,  where  the  Jesuits 
had  flourishing  missions — was  also  under  the  jurisdiction, 
for  a  time,  of  the  Bishop  of  Nesqually.  His  diocese  in 
1866  had  its  cathedral  at  Vancouver,  St.  Francis  Xavier's 
at  Cowditz,  Immaculate  Conception  at  Steilacoom,  St. 
Patrick's  at  Walla  Walla,  a  priest  at  Port  Townsend,  wnth 
Indian  missions  at  Snohomish,  Lamy,  Colville,  and  among 
the  Cceur  d'Alenes  and  Pend  d'Oreilles. 


464  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xx\ii. 

Province  of  San  Francisco. 

The  First  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  (1852)  solicited 
the  erection  of  San  Francisco  into  an  archbishopric,  leav- 
ing to  the  see  of  Monterey  the  southern  portion  of  the 
State.  The  immense  and  rapid  influx  of  immigrants, 
brought  into  northern  California  by  the  discovery  of  gold 
a  few  years  before,  and  the  phenomenal  rise  and  growth 
of  the  city  at  the  Golden  Gate  indicated  that  the  hopes  of 
the  church  lay  there,  and  not  in  the  Spanish  part  far- 
ther south.  The  Bishop  of  Monterey,  the  Rt.  Rev.  S.  J. 
Alemany,  became  Archbishop  of  San  Francisco  July,  1853. 
No  diocese  in  the  country  was  more  cosmopolitan  at  the 
time  ;  even  Chinese  Catholics  had  their  Chinese  priest,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Cian.  In  1866  there  were  not  less  than  fifty 
priests  in  the  diocese,  which  number  justifies  us  in  setting 
down  the  Catholic  population  at  not  less  than  fifty  thou- 
sand. 

The  see  of  Monterey,  made  vacant  by  the  promotion 
of  Archbishop  Alemany,  was  filled  by  the  Rev.  Thaddeus 
Amat  (1854).  As  Los  Angeles  was  looming  up  as  the 
more  important  city,  the  title  of  the  see  and  the  residence 
of  the  bishop  were  transferred  to  it  in  i860.  By  1866 
the  diocese  of  Monterey  and  Los  Angeles  had  twenty-two 
priests,  twenty-one  churches,  a  seminary  of  Our  Lady  of 
Guadalupe  at  Santa  Inez,  St.  Vincent's  College  under  the 
Lazarists,  the  Franciscan  College  at  the  mission  of  Santa 
Barbara,  and  houses  of  Sisters  of  Charity  at  Los  Angeles, 
Cieneguita,  San  Juan  Bautista,  and  Santa  Cruz. 

The  vicariate  apostolic  of  Marysville,  comprising  that 
part  of  California  which  lies  between  the  thirty-ninth  and 
forty-second  degrees  of  latitude,  was  formed  in  1861  and 
put  in  charge  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Eugene  O'Connell.  Within 
the  district  he  found  only  four  priests.     Five  years  later 


THE   SECOXn    PLEXARY   COUNCIL.  465 

(1866)  he   could   report  seventeen   priests  and  thirty-five 
churches. 

TJic  Second  Plenary  Council. 

The  motives  for  holding  a  Plenary  Council  soon  after 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War  (1866)  arc  thus  stated  by  Bishop 
Spalding  in  "  The  Life  of  Archbishop  Spalding  "  : 

"  The  principal  motives  for  holding  a  council,  to  which 
reference  is  here  made,  were,  first,  that  at  the  close  of  the 
national  crisis,  which  had  acted  as  a  dissolvent  upon  all 
sectarian  ecclesiastical  organizations,  the  Catholic  Church 
might  present  to  the  country  and  the  world  a  striking 
proof  of  the  strong  bond  of  unity  with  which  her  members 
are  knit  together.  Secondly,  that  the  collective  wisdom 
of  the  church  in  this  country  might  determine  what  meas- 
ures should  be  adopted  in  order  to  meet  the  new  phase  of 
national  life  which  the  result  of  the  war  had  just  inaugu- 
rated ;  for,  though  the  church  is  essentially  the  same  in  all 
times  and  places,  her  accidental  relations  to  the  world  and 
the  state  are  necessarily  variable.  Thirdly,  that  an  earnest 
effort  might  be  made  to  render  ecclesiastical  discipline,  as 
far  as  possible,  uniform  throughout  the  entire  extent  of  the 
United  States.  The  fourth  motive  I  shall  give  in  the 
words  of  Archbishop  Spalding: 

"  '  I  think,'  he  wrote,  '  that  it  is  our  most  urgent  duty 
to  discuss  the  future  status  of  the  negro.  Four  millions 
of  these  unfortunate  beings  are  thrown  on  our  charity,  and 
they  silently  but  eloquently  appeal  to  us  for  help.  We 
have  a  golden  opportunity  to  reap  a  harvest  of  souls, 
which,  neglected,  may  not  return.'  " 

On  the  7th  of  October,  1866,  seven  archbishops,  thirty- 
eight  bishops,  three  mitered  abbots,  and  o\^er  one  hundred 
and  twenty  theologians  met  in  Baltimore  to  take  part  in 
the  deliberations  of  the  Second  Plenary  Council  of  the 


466  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

church  in  the  United  States.  This  was,  at  the  time,  the 
largest  concihary  assembly  since  the  Council  of  Trent, 
with  the  exception  of  two  or  three  meetings  of  the  bishops 
in  Rome,  which,  however,  were  not  councils  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  word. 

Numerous  as  was  the  American  hierarchy  at  the  time, 
the  council  deemed  it  necessary  to  enlarge  it  in  order  to 
answer  the  growing  needs  of  the  church  in  the  country. 
It  recommended  the  erection  of  sees  at  Wilmington,  Del, 
Scranton  and  Harrisburg,  Pa.,  Green  Bay  and  La  Crosse, 
Wis.,  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  Omaha,  Neb.,  Columbus,  O.,  Grass 
Valley,  Cal.,  and  Rochester,  N.  Y.  ;  and  vicariates  apos- 
tolic in  North  Carolina,  Montana,  Colorado,  and  Arizona. 
They  also  solicited  the  erection  of  Philadelphia  and  Mil- 
waukee into  archiepiscopal  sees. 

The  method  of  selecting  candidates  for  the  episcopate 
had  varied  since  the  organization  of  the  church  here,  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  foregoing  pages.  The  system  adopted 
by  the  Second  Plenary  Council  and  approved  by  Rome  is 
substantially  the  following :  Every  three  years  each  bishop 
sends  to  his  metropolitan  and  to  the  Congregation  of  Prop- 
aganda a  list  of  the  priests  whom  he  thinks  worthy  of  the 
episcopal  office,  accompanied  by  a  detailed  account  of  the 
qualities  which  distinguish  them.  When  a  see  becomes 
vacant  the  bishops  meet  in  synod,  or  in  some  other  way, 
and  discuss  the  merits  of  the  candidates  to  be  presented 
to  fill  it.  Three  names  are  then  chosen  by  secret  suffrage 
and  are  sent  to  Rome,  together  with  a  proves  verbal  of  the 
proceedings.  From  this  list  the  sovereign  pontiff  selects 
the  person  whom  he  thinks  best  suited  to  the  office. 
However,  in  case  the  person  to  be  chosen  is  to  be  an 
archbishop  or  the  coadjutor  of  an  archbishop,  all  the  met- 
ropolitans of  the  United  States  must  be  consulted.  This 
method  lasted  until  the  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore 


APrOLXTMEXT  OF  BISHOPS.  467 

(1884).  It  was  then  amended,  and  the  following  enact- 
ments now  form  the  law  in  this  country : 

"  I.  When  a  diocese  falls  vacant,  whether  by  the  death, 
resignation,  transfer,  or  removal  of  the  bishop,  and  when, 
in  consequence,  three  candidates  are  to  be  chosen  whose 
names  shall  be  proposed  or  recommended  to  the  holy  see 
for  the  vacant  bishopric,  the  consulters  and  the  irremov- 
able rectors  of  the  vacant  diocese  shall  be  called  together, 
v.g.,  thirty  days  after  the  vacancy  occurs.  It  will  be  the 
right  and  duty  of  these  consulters  and  rectors,  thus  prop- 
erly assembled,  to  select  three  candidates  for  the  vacant 
see.  The  candidates  thus  chosen  shall  be  submitted  to 
the  bishops  of  the  province,  whose  right  it  will  be  to  ap- 
prove or  disapprove  of  them. 

"  2.  The  meeting  of  the  consulters  "and  irremovable 
rectors  is  called  and  presided  over  by  the  metropolitan  of 
the  province  to  which  the  vacant  diocese  belongs ;  or,  if 
the  metropolitan  is  lawfully  hindered,  by  one  of  the  suf- 
fragan bishops  of  the  same  province,  to  be  deputed  for 
this  purpose  by  the  metropolitan.  Where  there  is  ques- 
tion of  choosing  three  candidates  for  a  metropolitan 
see  which  is  vacant,  the  meeting  of  the  consulters  and 
irremovable  rectors  of  the  vacant  metropolitan  see  is  called 
and  presided  over  by  the  senior  suffragan  bishop,  or,  if  he 
is  hindered,  by  another  bishop  to  be  deputed  by  him. 

"  3.  Before  they  cast  their  votes  the  aforesaid  consulters 
and  rectors  shall  swear  that  they  are  not  induced  to  cast 
their  votes  for  a  candidate  because  of  unworthy  motives, 
such  as  that  of  expecting  favors  or  rewards.  They  shall 
vote  hy  secret  ballot.  This  vote  is  merely  consultive  ;  i.e., 
it  is  simply  equivalent  to  a  recommendation  that  one  of 
the  candidates  be  appointed  to  the  vacant  see. 

"  4.  The  president  of  the  meeting  shall  cause  two 
authentic  copies  of  the  minutes  of  the  meeting,  containing 


468  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvii. 

an  accurate  list  of  the  candidates  chosen,  to  be  drawn  up 
and  signed  by  the  secretary.  He  shall  forward  one  copy 
directly  to  the  S.  C.  de  Propaganda  Fide,  the  second  to 
the  other  bishops  of  the  province.  A  third  copy  may  also 
be  drawn  up  and  kept  in  the  diocesan  archives,  as  is  done 
in  England.  (For  the  manner  in  which  these  minutes  are 
written,  see  the  extract  from  the  statutes  of  the  cathedral 
chapters  in  England,  given  by  us  below,  in  Appendix 
VII.) 

"5.  Thereupon,  on  a  day  fixed  beforehand — v.g.,  ten 
days  after  the  above  meeting  of  consulters  and  rectors — 
the  bishops  of  the  province  shall  meet  and  openly  discuss 
among  themselves  the  merits  of  the  candidates  selected  by 
the  consulters  and  rectors,  or  of  others  to  be  selected  by 
themselves.  Afterward  they  make  up  their  list  of  three 
candidates  to  be  sent  to  Rome.  From  this  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  bishops  have  a  right  to  approve  or  disapprove  of 
them ;  they  are  bound  to  give  the  reasons  upon  which 
they  base  their  disapproval  to  the  S.  C.  de  Propaganda 
Fide." 

It  should  be  observed  that  the  above  presentation  of 
candidates  to  the  holy  see,  both  as  made,  on  the  one  hand, 
by  the  consulters  and  irremovable  rectors,  and  on  the  other 
by  the  bishops  of  the  province,  is  to  be  considered  not  as 
electio,posttilatio,  or  iioniinatio,  but  merelj^  as  conimeiidatio, 
which  imposes  upon  the  holy  see  no  obligation  to  appoint 
any  of  the  persons  recommended.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  the  holy  see  nearly  always  appoints  one  of  the 
candidates — usually  the  one  who  is  first  on  the  list — 
recommended  or  presented  in  the  manner  above  stated, 
and  rarely  goes  outside  of  the  list  of  the  candidates  pre- 
sented or  recommended  to  it  for  appointment. 

It  might  have  seemed  a  bold  thing  to  make  such  a  dis- 
play as  was   exhibited   by  this   grand  Catholic   assembly. 


STRENGTH  OF   THE    CHURCH.  469 

the  Second  Plenary  Council  of  1866,  before  the  eyes  of  a 
land  which  but  a  decade  ago  had  been  in  the  throes  of  a 
fierce  anti-Catholic  agitation.  But  our  bishops  were  wise 
in  their  boldness.  Says  Bishop  Spalding,  with  remarkable 
insight  and  vigor : 

"  The  country  had  just  come  forth  from  a  most  terrible 
crisis,  in  which  many  ancient  landmarks  had  been  efifaced 
and  the  very  ship  of  state  had  been  wrenched  from  its 
moorings.  House  had  been  divided  against  house,  and 
brother's  hand  had  been  raised  against  brother.  The  sects 
had  been  torn  asunder,  and  still  lay  in  disorder  and  con- 
fusion, helping  to  widen  the  abyss  which  had  threatened 
to  ingulf  the  nation's  life.  Half  the  country  was  waste 
and  desolate ;  the  people  crushed,  bowed  beneath  the 
double  weight  of  the  memory  of  the  past,  which  could  no 
more  return,  and  of  the  thought  of  a  future  which  seemed 
hopeless.  On  the  other  side  there  were  the  weariness  and 
exhaustion  which  follow  a  supreme  effort,  and  the  longing 
for  peace  and  happiness  after  so  much  bloodshed  and 
misery. 

"  All  were  ready  to  applaud  any  power  that  had  been 
able  to  live  through  that  frightful  struggle  unhurt  and 
unharmed;  and  when  the  Catholic  Church  walked  forth 
before  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  clothed  in  the  panoply  of 
undiminished  strength  and  of  unbroken  unity,  thousands 
who  but  a  while  ago  would  have  witnessed  this  manifesta- 
tion of  her  power  with  jealous  concern  now  hailed  it  with 
delight  as  a  harbinger  of  good  omen.  Then  it  must  be 
confessed,  too,  that  during  the  war  men  had  seen  more  of 
the  church,  and  having  learned  to  know  her  better,  had 
come  to  love  her  more.  There  was  not  a  village  through- 
out the  land  where  some  brave  soldier,  not  a  Catholic,  was 
not  found  to  speak  the  praises  of  her  heroic  daughters, 
who,  while  men  fought,  stood  by  to  stanch  the  blood." 


Part  IV.     From  the  Second  Plenary  Council 

TO  THE  Establishment  of  the  Apostolic 

Delegation  (1866-93). 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 
the  present  hierarchy. 

It  behooves  us  to  be  brief  in  this  period.  Events  of 
the  highest  importance  crowd  it — the  Vatican  Council, 
the  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore,  the  centenary  of 
Baltimore  as  an  episcopal  see,  the  inauguration  of  the 
Catholic  University  of  America  in  Washington,  the  national 
or  so-called  Cahensly  movement,  the  school  controversy, 
the  establishment  of  the  apostolic  delegation.  The  actors 
in  these  events  are  still  alive.  The  events  themselves  are 
too  near  for  history,  which  demands  perspective  and  there- 
fore a  certain  distance ;  some  of  them  have  been  so  burn- 
ing but  the  other  day  that  the  embers  might  be  fanned 
once  more  to  flame  by  the  slightest  breath.  I  shall  there- 
fore chronicle,  without  appreciating,  the  events  of  this 
period.      In  fact,  this  chapter  shall  be  barely  statistical. 

To-day  (1895)  we  find  in  the  United  States  fourteen 
archiepiscopal  sees  and  provinces.  At  the  Second  Plenary 
Council  of  1866  they  were  just  half  that  number — seven, 
viz.,  Baltimore,  St.  Louis,  Oregon,  Cincinnati,  San  Fran- 
cisco, New  Orleans,  New  York.  Boston,  Milwaukee, 
Philadelphia,  and  Santa  Fe  were  raised  to  the  archiepisco- 

470 


THE  nrosTOLiC  DELEGATION.  471 

pal  dignity  February,  1875  ;  Chicago,  September,  1880  ;  St. 
Paul,  May,  1888;  Dubuque,  September,  1893.  This  multi- 
plication of  archbishoprics  either  presupposed  or  entailed 
an  increase  of  bishoprics.  In  1866,  at  the  Second  Plenary 
Council,  the  dioceses  were  thirty-eight;  in  1895  they  are 
seventy-three,  almost  twice  as  many ;  so  that  this  latter 
period  of  twenty-nine  years  (1866-95)  has  seen  the  hie- 
rarchy double  its  development  of  the  three  former  periods 
of  seventy-six  years  (i  790-1 866).  The  bare  statement 
expresses  a  marvelous  increase,  a  phenomenal  progress. 
Add  to  this  that  the  cardinalitial  dignity  has  come  to 
crown  our  splendid  line  of  church  prelates,  first  in  one  of 
New  York's  archbishops,  and  again  in  Baltimore's  present 
archbishop;  and,  moreover,  that  an  apostolic  delegation, 
residing  in  Washington,  raises  the  hierarchy  of  the  United 
States  to  equality  with  that  of  any  country  in  the  world. 

The  sending  of  apostolic  delegates  to  national  churches 
is  a  prerogative  that  inheres  in  the  papacy  and  results 
logically  from  the  constitution  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
The  church  is  a  perfect  society  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  church 
has  from  Christ,  within  herself,  of  her  own  right,  all  the 
elements,  prerogatives,  and  duties  that  constitute  a  society. 
The  Bishop  of  Rome,  as  successor  of  St.  Peter,  who  was 
appointed  by  Christ  his  vicar  and  the  visible  head  of  his 
church,  has  supreme  authority  over  the  church  of  Christ. 
This  authority  is  plenary,  episcopal,  ordinary,  and  imme- 
diate, afifecting  directly  each  and  every  member,  without 
any  need  of  reaching  one  class  through  another;  so  that 
each  one,  no  less  than  the  collective  body,  is  subject  to 
that  authority.  In  each  diocese  there  are  two  episcopal 
authorities,  that  of  the  universal  bishop  and  that  of  the 
local  bishop.  The  first  is  supreme,  but  does  not  absorb 
the  other ;  the  second,  though  subordinate,  is  nevertheless 
efficacious  and  has  its  proper  field  of  action. 


472  THE  ROMAN  CATHOMCS.  [ChaP.  Xxviil. 

The  Pope,  therefore,  has  the  right  to  be  present  in  the 
church  of  each  country  through  a  representative,  if  he 
deem  it  expedient.  Legates  represent  the  person  of  the 
sovereign  pontiff.  They  are  sent  to  exercise  his  authority 
so  far  as  it  is  communicated  to  them.  They  are  not  sent 
to  seize  or  lessen  or  absorb  the  authority  of  the  local 
bishops,  no  more  than  the  papacy  itself  seizes  or  lessens 
or  destroys  the  local  episcopate.  They  are  not  aliens,  like 
ambassadors  to  a  foreign  country ;  they  are,  wherever  they 
may  be,  within  the  household  of  the  supreme  father  who 
sent  them,  for  they  are  within  the  church  directly  sub- 
ject to  him,  they  are  in  the  ecclesiastical  territory  of 
their  sovereign.  To  the  Catholic,  wherever  he  may  be, 
considered  from  the  religious  point  of  view  as  a  Catholic, 
the  Pope  is  not  a  foreigner  and  his  representative  is  not  a 
foreigner. 

Not  only  is  the  right  to  send  delegates  to  the  churches 
of  the  world  inherent  in  the  papacy,  but  it  has  been  exer- 
cised by  the  holy  see  from  the  earliest  times  of  Christian- 
ity, as  might  be  abundantly  proved  if  that  question  were 
the  specific  subject-matter  of  these  pages.  It  is  well  to 
know  that  the  establishment  of  the  apostolic  delegation 
in  the  United  States  is  not  due,  as  many  suppose,  to 
accidental  and  transitory  causes,  though  such  may  have 
furnished  the  occasion ;  but  that  it  is  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  first  principles  of  our  church  constitution, 
and  is  in  perfect  accord  with  the  traditional  practice  of 
past  ages.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  delega- 
tion to  the  United  States  is  strictly  ecclesiastical  and  not 
at  all  diplomatic.  The  American  delegate  is  accredited  to 
the  church,  not  to  the  government,  of  the  United  States. 
Courtesy  on  the  part  of  the  public  may  recognize  the  rank 
the  delegate  holds  witiiin  our  church,  as,  indeed,  our 
bishops,  archbishops,  and  cardinal  are  respected  and  hon- 


VATICAN  COUNCIL.  473 

ored  because  of  their  high  ecclesiastical  place.  Sucli 
recognition  and  treatment  is  officious,  not  official,  and  does 
not  entail  a  diplomatic  recognition. 

I  now  go  on  to  describe  succinctly  the  present  status  of 
the  American  hierarchy. 

Province  of  Baltimore. 

Archbishop  Spalding's  life  came  to  an  end  February  7, 
1872.  Between  this  latter  date  and  the  holding  of  the 
Second  Plenary  Council  had  taken  place  a  world-wide  event 
in  which  the  hierarchy  of  the  United  States,  and  Arch- 
bishop Spalding  as  its  leader,  had  no  unimportant  share ; 
I  mean  the  Vatican  Council.  In  the  beginning  "of  that 
memorable  assembly  the  question  whether  or  not  it  would 
be  opportune  to  define  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  found 
Archbishop  Spalding  and  most  of  his  American  colleagues 
inclined  to  the  opinion  tiiat  a  formal  definition  would  be 
unnecessary  and  possibly  inexpedient.  They  did  not 
deny  the  doctrine ;  they  and  their  flocks  believed  it.  But 
for  that  very  reason  there  could  be  no  necessity,  they 
argued,  for  a  formal  definition.  The  better  way  would 
be,  instead  of  proclaiming  the  dogma  of  infallibility  directly, 
to  condemn  all  errors  opposed  to  it ;  this  would  be  an 
indirect,  an  implicit,  and  not  the  less  vigorous  mode  of 
expressing  the  right  doctrine.  Accordingly  there  appeared 
over  the  signature  of  Archbishop  Spalding  a  postiilatinu, 
or  schema,  or,  as  we  should  say,  a  draft,  "  for  the  clear  and 
logical  definition  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman  pontiff 
in  accordance  with  the  principles  already  received  by  the 
church."  This  able  paper  became  at  once  one  of  the 
most  remarked  among  the  many  that  the  great  debate 
produced,  and  was  the  target  for  praise  and  blame.  It  is 
well    known    what    the   outo^me    has   been,    and    how   all 


474  ^-^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxviti. 

Catholicity,  no  part  of  it  more  loyally  and  enthusiastic- 
ally than  the  United  States,  has  accepted  the  defined 
dogma. 

Bishop  Bayley,  of  Newark,  N.  J.,  was  promoted  to  the 
primatial  see  of  Baltimore  as  the  successor  of  the  great 
Spalding,  July  30,  1872.  His  episcopate  there  was  a 
short  one;  he  died  October  3,  1877.  He  is  known  espe- 
cially for  his  contributions  to  the  church  history  of  the 
United  States — "  Life  of  Bishop  Brute"  and  "  History  of 
the  Catholic  Church  on  the  Island  of  New  York."  The 
successor  of  Archbishop  Bayley  was  the  Rt.  Rev.  James 
Gibbons,  transferred  to  Baltimore  from  the  see  of  Rich- 
mond October  3,  1877.  Many  important  events  mark  the 
episcopate  of  the  present  incumbent  of  the  primatial  see — 
the  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  (1884),  his  promo- 
tion to  the  cardinalitial  dignity  (June  7,  1886),  the  cele- 
bration of  the  centenary  of  the  appointment  of  Baltimore's 
first  bishop,  and  the  inauguration  of  the  Catholic  Univer- 
sity of  America  in  Washington  (1889),  without  speaking  of 
the  many  civil  events — centenaries,  Columbian  Exposition, 
a"d  others  of  lesser  note — in  which  he  has  been  a  promi- 
nent, if  not  the  chief,  figure.  It  does  not  befit  the  histo- 
rian to  turn  panegyrist  to  the  living.  Cardinal  Gibbons  is 
amrng  us  still — and  long  may  he  remain — the  pride  of 
the  '^hurch,  the  beloved  of  the  nation. 

B-shop  Lynch,  of  Charleston,  labored  many  years  with  a 
brav^  heart  and  a  wonderful  perseverance  to  restore  the 
material  condition  of  his  diocese,  ruined  by  the  war,  and 
died  amid  his  labors,  February  26,  1882.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Rt.  Rev.  H.  P.  Northrop,  transferred  from 
the  v'cariate  apostolic  of  North  Carolina  to  the  see  of 
Charleston  January  2^] ,  1883.  Richmond  lost  its  war 
bishcp,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  McGill,  January  14,  1872, 
possessed  for  five  years  the  Rt.  Rev.  James  Gibbons,  then 


CARDINAL   McCLOSKEV.  475 

passed  for  ten  years  (1878-88)  under  the  rule  of  the  Rt. 
Rev.  J.  J.  Keane,  whom  it  gave  as  first  rector,  indeed  as 
founder  and  organizer,  to  the  Catholic  University,  Wash- 
ington. Of  his  wonderful  success  in  this  great  work  under 
adverse  circumstances  the  future  historian  shall  have  much 
to  say ;  the  annalist  of  to-day  can  but  record  his  work  as 
phenomenal  in  the  history  of  universities.  Since  October 
20,  1889,  Bishop  A.  van  de  Vyver  rules  the  historic  see 
of  Richmond.  St.  Augustine  lost  its  first  incumbent. 
Bishop  Verot,  June  10,  1876,  and  received  its  present 
ruler,  Bishop  Moore,  May  13,  1877.  Savannah,  after  giv- 
ing Bishop  Verot  to  St.  Augustine  in  1870,  obtained  a 
successor  to  him  (April  23,  1873)  in  the  Rt.  Rev.  William 
H.  Gross,  whom  it  saw  depart  for  the  distant  archbishopric 
of  Portland,  Ore.,  in  1885,  to  be  replaced  (March,  1886) 
by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  A.  Becker,  transferred  from  the 
see  of  Wilmington.  Wheeling  lost  its  first  bishop,  R.  V. 
Whelan,  July,  1874.  He  was  succeeded  by  J.  J.  Kain  in 
May,  1875.  A  brilliant  episcopate  of  eighteen  years 
followed,  to  be  crowned  (July  6,  1893)  by  promotion  to 
the  archiepiscopal  see  of  St.  Louis.  The  incumbent  of 
Wheeling  since  April  8,  1894,  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  P.  J. 
Donahoe. 

Province  of  New  York. 

At  the  close  of  the  Second  Plenary  Council  the  great 
see  of  New  York  was  occupied  by  Archbishop  McCIoskey. 
Four  important  events  marked  his  episcopate  after  that  date  : 
his  attendance  on  the  Vatican  Council,  where  he  occupied 
a  prominent  position  on  one  of  the  committees  ;  his  promo- 
tion to  the  cardinalate,  the  first  time  the  honor  was  con- 
ferred on  the  United  States  (April  7,  1875)  I  hi'^  attendance 
— too  late,  however,  to  take  part  in  the  election — on  the 


476  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxviii. 

conclave  of  1878  that  gave  to  the  church  the  present 
gloriously  reigning  Pope,  Leo  XTII.  ;  and  the  dedication 
(May  25,  1879)  of  the  magnificent  cathedral  of  New  York. 
The  brilliant  career  of  America's  first  cardinal  closed 
October  10,  1885.  Five  years  before  he  had  received  as 
coadjutor  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  A.  Corrigan,  transferred  from 
the  see  of  Newark,  who  succeeded  him  in  the  see  of  New 
York.  When  Bishop  McCloskey,  on  the  death  of  Arch- 
bishop Hughes,  was  transferred  to  New  York  from  Albany, 
he  was  succeeded  in  that  see  (October,  1865)  by  the  Rt. 
Rev.  John  J.  Conroy,  who  resigned  the  position  October 
16,  1877,  to  be  replaced  by  his  coadjutor,  the  Rt.  Rev. 
Francis  McNeirny,  who  died  January  2,  1894.  The  pres- 
ent incumbent  of  Albany  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  A. 
Burke.  Brooklyn's  first  bishop,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Lough- 
lin,  died  December,  1891  ;  Bishop  Charles  E.  McDonnell 
succeeded  him  April,  1892.  On  the  death  of  Bishop 
Timon,  of  Buffalo  (April,  1867),  the  present  incumbent, 
the  Rt.  Rev.  S.  D.  Ryan,  was  appointed.  The  transfer  of 
Bishop  Bayley  from  Newark  to  Baltimore  (July,  1872) 
gave  occasion  for  the  appointment  to  the  see  of  Newark 
of  Rt.  Rev.  M.  A.  Corrigan  (May,  1873).  His  transfer  as 
coadjutor  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  New  York  (October, 
1880)  caused  a  new  appointment  for  Newark — that  of 
Bishop  W.  M.  Wigger,  who  is  still  living.  Ogdensburg 
was  erected  in  1872  ;  its  first  bishop  was  E.  P.  Wadhams, 
who  died  December,  1891  ;  its  present  bishop  is  the  Rt. 
Rev.  H.  Gabriels.  Rochester  was  established  in  1868; 
its  first  bishop  is  the  present  incumbent,  the  Rt.  Rev. 
B.  J.  McOuaid.  Syracuse  was  established  in  1886,  and  still 
possesses  its  first  bishop,  P.  A.  Ludden.  Trenton  was 
established  in  1881,  and  has  had  two  bishops — M.  J. 
O'Farrell,  who  died  April,  1894,  and  James  A.  McF"aul, 
who  was  consecrated  in  October  last  (1894). 


AKciiBisnor  ruRCELL.  477 

Province  of  Cincinnati. 

The  long  and  glorious  career  of  Archbishop  Purcell 
went  down  (July,  1883)  in  a  dark  cloud  and  a  terrible 
sorrow — bankruptcy  running  into  the  millions.  To  suc- 
ceed him  the  present  incumbent,  Archbishop  Elder,  was 
transferred  from  the  see  of  Natchez.  Bishop  Rappe,  of 
Cleveland,  under  the  stress  of  calumnious  accusations 
which  were  proved  before  his  death  to  be  false,  resigned 
the  see  of  Cleveland  August  22,  1870.  His  successor, 
Bishop  Gilmour,  lived  until  April  13,  1891.  The  present 
incumbent  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  Ignatius  F.  Horstmann.  Co- 
lumbus was  established  in  1868;  its  first  bishop,  S.  II. 
Rosecrans,  died  October  21,  1878;  since  August  8,  1880, 
it  is  ruled  by  Bishop  J.  A.  Watterson.  The  first  Bishop 
of  Covington,  G.  A.  Carrell,  died  September  25,  1868; 
his  successor,  A.  M.  Toebbe,  lived  until  May  2,  1884;  the 
present  occupant  of  the  see,  since  January  25,  1885,  is 
Bishop  C.  P.  Maes.  C.  H.  Borgess  was  consecrated  Bishop 
of  Detroit  April  24,  1870;  he  resigned  April  6,  1887;  the 
present  incumbent,  since  November  4,  1888,  is  Bishop 
John  S.  Foley.  Fort  Wayne  lost  its  first  bishop,  J.  H. 
Luers,  June  29,  1871,  lost  its  second  bishop,  Joseph 
Dwenger,  January  22,  1893,  ^'""^  is  now  under  the  rule  of 
Bishop  Rademacher.  Grand  Rapids,  an  erection  of  1882, 
is  still  under  its  first  bishop,  H.  J.  Richter.  The  present 
Bishop  of  Louisville,  W.  J.  McCloskey,  was  appointed  soon 
after  the  Second  Plenary  Council  and  consecrated  May 
24,  1868.  Nashville  lost  to  Chicago  Bishop  Feehan  in 
1880,  and  to  Fort  Wayne  Bishop  Rademacher  in  1893; 
its  present  incumbent  is  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  S.  Byrne. 
Bishop  De  St.  Palais,  of  Vincennes,  died  June  28,  1877, 
and  was  succeeded  (May  12,  1878)  by  the  present  incum- 
bent, Bishop  Chatard.. 


478  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxvui. 

Province  of  St,  Louis. 

The  veteran  of  the  West,  the  venerable  Archbishop 
Kenrick,  who  has  been  in  the  see  of  St.  Louis  since  1843, 
is  still  living,  but  the  title  of  the  diocese  is  held  by  the 
former  coadjutor,  Archbishop  Kain.  The  other  sees  of 
the  province,  as  now  constituted,  are  of  recent  erection. 
Concordia,  erected  in  1887,  gave  its  first  bishop,  R.  Scan- 
nell,  to  Omaha  in  December,  1890;  since  then  the  see  is 
vacant  and  is  administered  by  the  Bishop  of  Wichita,  Rt 
Rev.  J.  J.  Hennessey.  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  though  erected 
only  in  May,  1891,  can  trace  its  origin  through  Leaven- 
worth (May,  1877)  to  the  vicariate  apostolic  of  Kansas, 
established  June,  1871.  The  Rt.  Rev.  Louis  M.  Fink 
between  187 1  and  1895  has  been  successively  Vicar 
Apostolic  of  Kansas,  Bishop  of  Leavenworth,  and  Bishop 
of  Kansas  City,  Kan.  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  was  established 
September,  1880,  in  which  year  the  incumbent  of  St. 
Joseph,  Mo.,  Bishop  J.  J.  Hogan,  was  transferred  to  Kan- 
sas City,  remaining,  nevertheless.  Administrator  of  St. 
Joseph.  This  latter  diocese,  erected  in  1868,  had,  there- 
fore, for  its  first  bishop  until  1880  the  Rt.  Rev.  J.  J. 
Hogan,  who  continued  to  administer  it  until  1893,  when 
it  received  as  its  second  bishop  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  J.  Burke, 
transferred  from  the  see  of  Cheyenne.  Wichita  was 
erected  in  1887,  and  is  ruled  by  its  first  bishop,  J.  J. 
Hennessey. 

Province  of  New  Orleans. 

Archbishop  Odin  died  May  25,  1870.  His  successor, 
N.  J.  Perche,  died  December,  1883.  F.  X.  Leray,  trans- 
ferred from  Natchitoches  to  New  Orleans,  died  Septem- 
ber, 1887.  He  was  succeeded  by  the  present  incumbent, 
F.  Janssens,  transferred  to  New  Orleans  from  Natchez  in 


PROVINCE   OF  XEir  OK/.EANS.  479 

August,  1888.  Dallas  was  an  erection  of  1890;  its  first 
incumbent,  T.  F.  Brennan,  resigned  in  1892  ;  Bishop  E.  J. 
Dunne  is  the  incumbent  since  November  30,  1893.  Bishop 
C.  M.  Dubuis  resigned  the  see  of  Galveston  in  1881,  his 
coadjutor,  P.  Dufal,  resigned  it  likewise,  and  the  present 
bishop,  N.  A.  Gallagher,  was  appointed  April  30,  1892. 
Little  Rock  has  had  but  the  one  bishop  since  February, 
1867,  the  Rt.  Rev.  E.  Fitzgerald.  Mobile  lost  Bishop 
Quinlan  by  death  in  1883  and  Bishop  Manucy  by  resigna- 
tion in  1884;  the  present  incumbent,  since  September, 
1885,  is  Bishop  J.  O'Sullivan.  From  Natchez  Bishop 
Elder  was  transferred  to  Cincinnati  in  1880,  and  Bishop 
Janssens  to  New  Orleans  in  1888;  the  present  incumbent 
is  Bishop  Thomas  Heslin.  Bishop  Martin,  of  Natchitoches, 
died  September,  1875;  his  successor,  F.  X.  Leray,  was 
transferred  to  New  Orleans  in  1883;  and  his  successor. 
Bishop  Durier,  consecrated  November,  1885,  still  holds 
the  see.  San  Antonio  was  erected  in  1874 ;  its  first  bishop, 
A.  D.  Pellicer,  died  April,  1880;  the  second  bishop,  John 
C.  Neraz,  died  November,  1894;  just  now  the  see  is  with- 
out an  incumbent.  Brownsville  is  a  vicariate  apostolic, 
established  in  1874  ;  the  first  occupant  was  Bishop  Manucy 
until  1884;  the  present  occupant,  since  November,  1890, 
is  Rt.  Rev.  Peter  Verdaguer.  Another  vicariate  apostolic, 
established  1891,  is  the  Indian  Territory,  under  the  Rt. 
Rev.  Theophile  Meerschaert. 

Province  of  Oregon. 

This  province  has  not  grown  and  extended  as  its  sisters, 
though  we  think  that  there  is  before  this  northwestern 
section  of  the  Union  an  era  of  wonderful  prosperity.  The 
archdiocese  of  Oregon  or  Portland  lost  its  pioneer  arch- 
bishop,  the   Most   Rev.   F.   N.   Blanchet,   in  June,    1883. 


480  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxviii. 

Bishop  Seghers,  transferred  from  Vancouver  Island,  had 
been  since  1878  coadjutor  to  Archbishop  Blanchet,  and 
succeeded  him  only  to  resign  in  1884  and  go  find  a  saintly 
but  tragic  death  on  the  banks  of  the  Yukon  River  in  the 
heart  of  Alaska.  The  present  incumbent  is  the  Most 
Rev.  W.  H.  Gross,  transferred  from  Savannah  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1885.  Boise  City,  Ida.,  established  as  a  vicariate 
in  1868,  was  erected  into  a  diocese  in  1893;  its  first 
occupant.  Bishop  Lootens,  resigned  in  1876;  since  1885 
Bishop  A.  J.  Glorien  occupies  the  see.  Nesqually  lost  its 
pioneer  bishop,  M.  A.  Blanchet,  in  1879 ;  he  was  succeeded 
by  Bishop  A.  Junger,  who  still  holds  the  see.  Alaska 
was  made  a  prefecture  apostolic  in  1894,  under  Very  Rev. 
P.  Tosi,  S.J. 

Province  of  San  Francisco. 

The  first  Archbishop  of  San  Francisco,  the  saintly 
Alemany,  resigned  in  1884  to  go  die  in  his  native  Spain; 
a  year  before  his  resignation  he  had  received  as  coadjutor 
the  Most  Rev.  P.  W.  Riordan,  who  still  occupies  the  see. 
The  first  Bishop  of  Monterey,  Thaddeus  Amat,  died  in 
1878;  he  had  received  in  1873  a  coadjutor.  Bishop  Mora, 
who  succeeded  him;  he  in  turn  received,  in  1894,  a  coad- 
jutor, the  Rt.  Rev.  George  Montgomery.  The  diocese  of 
Sacramento,  established  in  1886,  was  put  in  charge  of 
Bishop  Manogue,  who  died  in  1895.  Salt  Lake  City, 
from  a  vicariate  apostolic  established  in  1886,  was  erected 
into  a  diocese  in  1891  ;  its  first  and  present  incumbent  is 
the  Rt.  Rev.  L.  Scanlon. 

Province  of  Boston. 

Bishop  Fitzpatrick  died  February  13,  1866.  Previous 
to  his  death  he  received  a,s  coadjutor  John  Joseph  Williams, 


PROVINCE    OF  MIIAIALKEE.  48  I 

who  became  his  successor.  In  February,  1875,  Boston 
was  made  an  archbishopric,  and  I^isliop  WilHams  became 
its  first  archbishop.  He  still  hvcs  in  vigorous  healtli, 
having  celebrated  the  golden  jubilee  of  his  priesthood  in 
May,  1895.  He  was  gi\en  an  auxiliary,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John 
Brady,  in  August,  1891.  The  first  incumbent  of  Burling- 
ton, Bishop  De  Goesbriand,  still  holds  that  see  ;  since  June, 
1892,  he  has  for  coadjutor  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Michaud. 
Hartford  lost  Bishop  McFarland  in  October,  1874.  He 
was  succeeded  (March,  1876)  by  Thomas  Galberry,  who 
died  in  October,  1878.  To  him  succeeded  L.  S.  McMahon, 
who  died  in  August,  1893.  The  present  incumbent  is  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Michael  Tierney.  Manchester  was  erected  in 
1884  and  is  ruled  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Denis  M.  Bradley. 
Portland  was  deprived  of  Bishop  Bacon  by  death,  Novem- 
ber, 1874.  His  successor  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  James  A.  Healy. 
Providence  was  erected  in  1872;  its  first  bishop,  Thomas 
F.  Hendricken,  died  in  June,  1886,  and  was  succeeded  by 
the  present  incumbent,  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  Harkins.  Spring- 
field was  erected  in  June,  1870;  its  first  bishop,  P.  T. 
O'Reilly,  died  in  May,  1892;  it  is  now  ruled  by  the  Rt. 
Rev.  Thomas  D.  Beaven. 

Province  of  Mihvaiikee. 

Milwaukee  became  an  archbishopric  in  1875;  its  first 
archbishop,  the  Most  Rev.  John  Martin  Henni,  died  in 
September,  1881.  One  year  before  his  death  he  received 
as  coadjutor  Bishop  M.  Heiss,  transferred  from  La  Crosse. 
Archbishop  Heiss  died  in  March,  1890.  The  present 
archbishop  is  the  Most  Rev.  Y .  X.  Katzer.  Green  Bay 
was  erected  in  1868  ;  it  had  for  first  bishop  Rt.  Rev.  Joseph 
Melcher,  who  died  in  December,  1873,  and  was  succeeded 
by    F.    X.    Krautbauer,   who    died    in    December,    1885. 


482  THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxviii. 

Bishop  Katzer  succeeded  him  until  January,  1891,  when 
he  was  transferred  to  the  see  of  Milwaukee.  The  present 
incumbent  of  Green  Bay  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  S.  G.  Messmer. 
La  Crosse  was  made  a  diocese  in  1868,  and  was  ruled  by 
Bishop  Heiss  until  his  transfer  to  Milwaukee  in  1880. 
His  successor  was  the  Rt.  Rev.  K.  C.  Flasch,  who  died  in 
August,  1 89 1.  The  present  bishop  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  James 
Schwebach.  The  diocese  of  Marquette  lost  Bishop  Baraga 
in  1868.  He  was  succeeded  by  Ignatius  Mrak,  who  re- 
signed in  1878.  The  present  incumbent  is  the  Rt.  Rev. 
John  Vertin. 

Province  of  Philadelphia. 

The  diocese  of  Philadelphia  was  made  an  archbishopric 
in  June,  1875.  Archbishop  Wood  died  in  June,  1883, 
and  was  succeeded  by  Bishop  P.  J.  Ryan,  transferred  from 
the  coadjutorship  of  St.  Louis.  Erie  is  ruled  since  1868 
by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Tobias  Mullen.  Harrisburg  was  erected 
in  1868;  its  first  bishop,  J.  F.  Shanahan,  died  in  Septem- 
ber, 1868;  he  was  succeeded  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas 
McGovern,  who  still  holds  the  see.  Bishop  Domenec,  of 
Pittsburg,  was  removed  to  the  see  of  Alleghany  City  in 
1876,  and  was  succeeded  in  the  see  of  Pittsburg  by  Bishop 
J.  Twigg,  who  died  in  December,  1889.  The  present  in- 
cumbent of  the  reunited  sees,  Pittsburg  and  Alleghany 
City,  is  Bishop  R.  Phelan.  Scranton  was  made  a  diocese 
in  1868,  and  is  stiH  ruled  by  its  first  bishop,  the  Rt.  Rev. 
William  O'Hara. 

Province  of  Santa  Fe. 

The  first  Bishop  of  Santa  Fe,  J.  B.  Lamy,  died  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1888.  His  coadjutor,  J.  B.  Salpointe,  transferred 
in   1869  from   the  vicariate  apostolic   of  Arizona,  became 


WESTERN  PKOllXCES.  483 

his  successor  and  was  made  archbishop  in  July,  1884; 
three  years  after  the  appointment  of  his  own  coadjutor  he 
resigned  (August,  1894),  and  thus  the  see  passed  into  the 
hands  of  its  present  archbishop,  the  Most  Rev.  P.  L. 
Chapelle.  Colorado  was  made  a  vicariate  apostolic  in 
1868,  a  diocese  with  Denver  as  see  in  1887;  the  first 
bishop,  J.  P.  Macheboeuf,  died  in  1889,  and  was  succeeded 
by  the  present  incumbent,  N.  C.  Matz,  who  was  coadjutor 
since  1887.  Arizona  was  made  a  vicariate  apostolic  in 
1869;  the  first  vicar,  J.  B.  Salpointe,  was  transferred  to 
Santa  Fe  in  1884.  The  present  incumbent  is  the  Rt.  Rev. 
P.  Bourgade,  who  became  Bishop  of  Tucson  in  1894  on 
the  changing  of  the  vicariate  into  a  diocese. 

Province  of  C J  lie  ago. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  Foley  became  Coadjutor  and 
Administrator  of  the  diocese  of  Chicago  in  February,  1870. 
During  his  short  rule — for  he  died  in  February,  1879 — he 
restored  peace  to  the  distracted  diocese  and  set  it  on  the 
way  to  that  wonderful  progress  it  has  attained  since.  In 
1880  Chicago  was  made  an  archbishopric,  and  Bishop 
Feehan,  of  Nashville,  was  transferred  to  the  promoted  see. 
Alton  lost  its  first  bishop,  H.  D.  Juncker,  in  October, 
1868.  In  1870  he  was  succeeded  by  P.  J.  Baltes,  who 
died  in  February,  1886.  The  present  incumbent,  since 
1888,  is  Bishop  James  Ryan.  Belleville  was  made  a  dio- 
cese in  1887,  and  J.  J.  Jansen,  its  present  bishop,  was 
consecrated  in  April,  1888.  Peoria  was  erected  in  1887 
and  given  in  charge  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  J.  L.  Spalding,  who 
still  rules  it. 

Provinee  of  St.  Paul. 

Rt.  Rev.  T.  L.  Grace,  after  receiving  for  coadjutor  in 
1875  John  Ireland,  resigned  the  see  of  St.  Paul  July,  1884, 


484  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap,  xxviii. 

and  is  now  spending  his  declining  years  in  the  classic 
shades  of  St.  Thomas's  College  near  that  city.  St.  Paul 
was  made  an  archbishopric  in  May,  1888,  and  is  famous 
throughout  the  world  with  the  fame  of  its  archbishop. 
St.  Cloud,  erected  into  a  bishopric  in  1889,  was  at  first  the 
vicariate  apostolic  of  northern  Minnesota.  Bishop  Seiden- 
busch,  its  first  incumbent,  resigned  in  1889,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Otto  Zardetti,  who  in  1894  was  transferred  to 
the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Bucharest,  Roumania.  In  the 
beginning  of  1895  Bishop  Marty  was  transferred  from 
Sioux  Falls,  S.  Dak.,  to  the  vacant  see  of  St.  Cloud.  The 
diocese  of  Duluth  was  established  in  1889;  its  first  bishop 
is  the  Rt.  Rev.  James  McGolrick.  Jamestown  also  was 
erected  in  1889;  its  bishop  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Shanley. 
Winona  likewise  was  erected  in  1889,  and  is  ruled  by  the 
Rt.  Rev.  J.  B.  Cotter.  In  1880  was  established  the  vica- 
riate apostolic  of  Dakota,  erected  into  a  diocese  in  1889; 
its  first  bishop,  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  Marty,  was  transferred 
in  1895  to  St.  Cloud. 

Province  of  Dubuque. 

Dubuque  was  made  an  archbishopric  in  1893,  ^"<^  its 
bishop  since  1866,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Hennessey,  became 
archbishop.  Omaha,  established  as  the  vicariate  of  Ne- 
braska in  1857,  was  made  a  bishopric  in  1885.  Bishop 
O'Gorman  died  in  July,  1874,  and  was  succeeded  in  1876 
by  Bishop  O'Connor,  who  died  May,  1890.  The  present 
incumbent  is  the  Rt.  Rev.  R.  Scannell,  transferred  from 
Concordia  in  1890.  The  diocese  of  Cheyenne  was  erected 
in  1887,  and  remained  under  the  rule  of  Bishop  Burke 
until  he  was  transferred  to  St.  Joseph  in  1893.  Davenport 
was  made  a  diocese  in  1881  ;  its  first  bishop  was  Jolin 
Mullen,  who  died  in  July,  1883,  and  was  succeeded  by  the 


RESULT  OF  A    CENTUkY.  485 

present  incumbent,  the  Rt.  Rev.  Henry  Cosgrove.  Lin- 
coln was  erected  in  1887;  its  first  incumbent,  the  Rt.  Rev, 
Thomas  Bonacum,  still  rules  it. 

Such  is  the  condition  of  the  hierarchy  in  the  year  1895. 
The  annexed  tabular  statement,  taken  from  Hoffman's 
Directory,  shows  the  number  of  archbishops,  bishops, 
priests,  churches,  missions,  seminaries  and  students,  schools 
and  children,  orphan  asylums  and  inmates,  charitable  in- 
stitutions, and  Catholic  population.  We  put  in  a  caution 
as  to  the  last  item,  for  the  reason  that  another  directory, 
Sadlier's,  equally  authorized,  finds  a  Catholic  population  of 
over  10,000,000 — a  different  total  from  Hoffman's,  which 
is  9,077,865.  In  other  respects  we  believe  Hoffman's  is 
mainly  correct.  Behold  here  the  work  and  progress  of  a 
century  !  No  one  can  deny  that  it  is  simply  wonderful.  It 
were  presumptuous  to  indulge  in  foreseeings  and  foretellings. 
Yet  he  would  be  a  rash  man  who  should  say  that  we  have 
come  to  a  standstill ;  that  the  church  which  has  reached  such 
an  extension  under  adverse  circumstances,  amid  the  difficul- 
ties of  infancy  and  youth,  shall  have  no  vigor  to  grow  with 
still  more  gigantic  strides  in  the  more  propitious  times 
that  are  already  at  hand,  and  in  the  full  vigor  of  an  assured 
manhood. 


4S6 


THE   ROMAN  CATHOLICS. 


[Chat,  xxviii. 


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Chapter  xxix. 

CONCLUDING   REMARKS. 

Religions  Orders. — Literature. — Losses. — Councils. 

"  There  is  no  phase  of  human  misery  and  affliction," 
writes  Cardinal  Gibbons,  "  for  which  the  Catholic  Church 
does  not  provide  some  antidote,  some  alleviation.  She 
has  foundling  asylums  to  receive  and  shelter  helpless  in- 
fants that  are  either  abandoned  by  unnatural  mothers  or 
bereft  of  their  parents  before  they  knew  a  mother's  love. 
As  the  church  provides  for  those  yet  on  the  threshold  of 
life,  so  too  does  she  secure  retreats  for  those  on  the  thresh- 
old of  death."  Between  the  cradle  and  the  grave  there  is 
not  a  suffering,  a  privation,  a  degradation,  there  is  not  a 
shattered  body  or  heart  or  reputation,  for  which  she  has 
not  provided  a  home  wherein  the  remedies  and  consola- 
tions of  earth  are  combined  with  those  of  heaven  to  relieve 
the  pains  and  repair  the  breakings  of  fallen  humanity. 
This  noble  work,  the  most  patent  proof  of  genuine  Chris- 
tianity, is  done  by  our  religious  orders. 

The  bare  statistics  (name,  date  of  introduction,  number 
of  members,  institutions  carried  on)  of  our  religious  orders 
of  men  and  women  fill  forty-three  closely  printed  pages  in 
small  type  of  Hoffman's  Directory  for  the  year  1895. 
Evidently  space  does  not  allow  me  to  give  even  the  slight- 
est notion  of  their  origin,  introduction  into  this  country, 
and   their  expansion.      Many  monographs  on  the  subject 

have  been  written,  some  of  which  are  named  in  the  Bibliog- 

488 


LOSSES  EXAGGERATED.  489 

raphy  that  precedes  this  volume.  A  complete  history  of 
our  religious  orders  would  demand  a  special  volume  and 
would  be  of  the  highest  value,  for  their  history  is  the  his- 
tory of  Catholic  education  and  charities.  Our  parochial 
schools,  colleges,  academies,  and  charitable  institutions  are 
in  their  hands.  The  General  Summary  on  pages  486, 
487  will  give  the  reader  some  notion  of  the  great  work 
they  are  doing,  and  of  the  large  part  they  occupy  in  the 
Catholic  life  of  the  land. 

Catholic  literature  past  and  present  is  another  large  field 
which  I  must  pass  over  with  the  mere  mention.  I  add 
the  remark  that  the  pioneer  work  of  founding  and  building 
being  now  past,  with  our  colleges,  and  especially  our  uni- 
versity in  Washington,  raising -the  standard  and  improving 
the  methods  of  study,  there  is  every  hope  that  in  the 
future  our  clergymen  and  educated  laymen  shall  find  more 
leisure  and  more  profit  in  literary  and  scientific  work  than 
their  predecessors  and  fathers  found  in  the  first  century 
of  our  history,  when  the  Catholics,  like  the  rest  of  the 
community,  were  absorbed  in  the  building  up  and  the 
securing  of  the  infant  nation. 

There  has  been  much  wild  writing  about  the  losses  of 
the  church  in  this  country.  Bishop  England,  whiling 
away  his  time  on  board  ship  at  guessing  the  Catholic  losses 
in  his  day,  without  statistics  or  references  at  hand,  set 
down  the  losses  in  his  diocese,  comprising  the  two  Caro- 
linas  and  Georgia,  at  thirty-eight  thousand.  We  have  no 
statistics  of  that  time  to  set  against  him,  but  history  will 
not  bear  him  out,  for  the  reason  that  previously  to  his 
time  but  few  Catholics  settled  south  of  the  Potomac,  and 
for  the  additional  reason  that  the  number  of  Catholics  in 
the  South  Atlantic  States  was  not  the  cause  of  the  erection 
of  the  diocese  of  Charleston  any  more  than  it  was  of  the 


490  THE  ROMAh^  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

dioceses  of  Mobile  or  Natchez  or  Little  Rock  or  Savannah. 
But  Bishop  England  was  led  by  a  further  error  into  gen- 
eralizing from  his  own  district  to  the  country  at  large. 
"We  ought,"  he  writes,  "  if  there  had  been  no  loss,  to 
have  five  millions  of  Catholics ;  and  as  we  have  less  than 
one  million  and  a  quarter,  there  must  have  been  a  loss  of 
three  millions  and  a  quarter  within  the  last  fifty  years 
(i  786-1836)."  He  assumed  that  in  fifty  years  there  had 
come  into  the  United  States  eight  millions  of  immigrants. 
This  assumption,  which  is  the  basis  of  his  calculation  and 
argument,  is  absolutely  without  foundation.  According 
to  Bromwell's  "  History  of  Immigration  to  the  United 
States,"  compiled  from  the  best  data,  the  total  immigration 
into  the  United  States  from  1789  to  1835  was  514,159. 
Bishop  England's  opinion  as  to  our  losses  in  his  time  may 
be  set  aside. 

A  Rev.  Mr.  Mullen,  delegate  to  this  country  from  the 
Catholic  University  of  Ireland  in  1852,  made  the  charge 
that  there  were  two  millions  of  apostates,  mainly  Irish, 
from  the  Catholic  Church  in  1850.  To  show  how  rash  is 
the  assertion,  suffice  it  to  say  that  according  to  the  census 
of  1850  the  foreign-born  population — all  nationalities — in 
the  United  States  was  2,244,602. 

The  famous  Lucerne  Memorial  of  1891 — the  same  that 
drew  from  Senator  Davis  his  no  less  famous  anti-Cahensly 
speech  in  the  senate's  winter  session  of  1892 — a  memorial 
addressed  to  the  holy  see  by  Mr.  Cahensly  and  others,  states  : 
"  Calculations  based  on  the  most  trustworthy  statistics 
establish  that  Catholic  immigrants  and  their  descendants 
in  the  United  States  should  number  twenty-six  millions; 
the  actual  number  of  Catholics  there  is  hardly  ten  millions  ; 
therefore  there  has  been  a  loss  of  sixteen  millions." 

An  anonymous  pamphlet,  "  The  Question  of  National- 
ity," published  in  1889,  states:  "  In  the  same  proportion 


TESTIMONY  OF  HISTORY.  491 

[we  pass  over  the  computation  to  get  at  the  conclusion] 
we  would  have  at  present  about  twenty  million  Irish- 
born  [he  means  Irish  and  their  descendants]  and  sixteen 
million  German-born.  Now  there  ought  to  be  about 
eighteen  million  Irish  Catholics  and  about  five  million 
German  Catholics;  Americans,  Poles,  Italians,  etc.,  would 
make  two  millions  more;  total,  twenty-five  millions  of 
Catholics.  But  according  to  Hoffman's  Directory  for  the 
year  1889  the  Catholic  population  was  8,157,676.  There- 
fore there  has  been  a  loss  to  the  church  of  two  thirds  of  the 
Catholic  body."  The  author  of  "  The  Question  of  Nation- 
ality "  is  an  echo  of  the  Lucerne  Memorial ;  he  deserves 
special  honor  and  we  owe  him  a  special  gratitude  for  giv- 
ing us  the  "  most  trustworthy  statistics "  on  which  the 
memorial  based  its  assertion  of  a  loss  of  sixteen  millions. 
How  trustworthy  they  are — the  statistics  and  the  inferences 
— suffice  it  to  say  that  the  total  foreign-born  population 
of  all  nationalities  and  creeds  according  to  the  census  of 
1880  was  6,679,943. 

Finally,  Mr.  John  O'Kane  Murray,  in  Appendix  G  to 
his  "  Popular  History  of  the  Catholic  Church,"  makes  out 
that  in  1870  the  total  Celtic  element  in  the  population 
of  the  United  States  was  twenty-four  millions,  and  adds 
that  "  almost  the  entire  Celtic  element  might  be  safely 
regarded  as  the  descendants  of  men  who  were  Catholics 
on  settling  in  America."  If  that  is  so,  and  if  to  this  Celtic 
element  is  added  the  Catholic  contingent  of  the  Germanic 
and  Slavonic  elements,  we  should  have  an  immense  Cath- 
olic population,  and  our  losses  are  truly  appalling. 

Now  the  question  maj^  be  solved,  as  far  as  it  can  be 
solved,  partly  by  history  and  partly  by  statistics. 

What  does  history  say  in  the  matter?  History  tells  us 
that  the  loss  of  European  Catholics — for  I  lea\'e  aside  the 
Indians,  having  touched  on  their  losses  elsewhere — during 


492  THE  ROMAN-  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

the  mission  period  was  inconsiderable,  for  the  reason, 
mainly,  that  there  were  not  many  to  lose.  The  Catholics 
of  New  Mexico  have  been  retained,  and  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  smaller  bodies  in  Texas  and  Florida.  A  few 
may  have  been  lost  to  us  in  Louisiana,  and  for  the  loss 
there  is  an  explanation.  Louisiana  was  settled  at  a  time 
of  religious  decadence  in  France,  and  by  a  class  of  French 
in  whom  the  faith  was  not  deep  and  firm.  Moreover,  the 
suppression  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  the  consequent 
breaking  up  of  their  mission  work,  the  changes  of  govern- 
ment from  French  to  Spanish,  from  Spanish  to  French, 
from  French  to  American,  and,  above  all,  the  long  schism 
created  by  the  rebellious  trustees  of  New  Orleans,  were 
events  not  at  all  favorable  to  the  preservation  of  Catholi- 
city. And  yet  it  may  be  said  that  the  majority  of  Loui- 
sianian  Catholics  persevered,  and  that  their  descendants 
to-day  are  not  the  least  numerous,  respectable,  and  wealthy 
portion  of  the  present  Catholic  population  in  the  dioceses 
of  Mobile  and  New  Orleans. 

We  have  retained  the  majority  of  the  Catholics  in  the 
Illinois  and  Ottavv^a  missions.  Cahokia,  Kaskaskia,  Chicago, 
Prairie  du  Chien,  Davenport,  Dubuque,  St.  Paul,  Milwau- 
kee, Green  Bay,  Mackinaw,  Detroit,  Sandusky,  Vincennes, 
Terre  Haute,  and  many  other  places  have  their  origins  in 
this  Canadian  Catholicity  of  the  mission  period.  After 
the  cession  of  Canada  to  England  there  may  have  been 
some  losses,  for  the  reason,  mainly,  that  for  many  years 
the  Canadians  of  the  West  were  without  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  priests ;  but  the  losses  were  as  nothing  compared  with 
what  remained.  At  any  rate,  the  Canadian  population  of 
the  West  was  inconsiderable  at  the  time. 

There  remain,  then,  to  be  considered  the  English  mis- 
sions on  the  Atlantic  coast.  There  are  no  statistics  to  show 
the  exact  number  of  Catholics  who  settled  in  Maryland.     It 


TESTIMONY  OF  STATISTICS.  493 

cannot  have  been  very  great,  since  in  a  few  years  after  the 
settlement  the  Puritans  from  Virginia,  and  some  years 
later  the  AngHcans,  became  the  majority.  The  statistics 
we  have  given  in  the  history  of  the  colonial  Catholicity  of 
Maryland  show  no  large  defections  from  the  church, 
though  no  doubt  the  penal  legislation  of  the  pre-Revolu- 
tionary  times  and  the  apostasy  of  the  House  of  Baltimore 
must  have  had  some  influence.  However,  we  dare  to  sa\- 
that  the  influence  was  slight  and  our  losses  inconsiderable. 
The  Episcopalians  were  watchful  and  jealous;  if  they 
could  have  boasted  of  gaining  over  Catholics  we  should 
find  some  traces  of  the  boasting;  but  it  is  quite  the  con- 
trary :  the  records  show  constant  complaints  from  them  of 
the  growth  of  the  church,  necessitating  legislation  more 
and  more  penal.  Outside  of  Maryland  in  colonial  times 
there  were  no  Catholics  to  speak  of,  and  there  could  not 
be,  for  the  legislation  of  the  colonies,  with  the  exception 
of  Pennsylvania,  amounted  to  a  strict  embargo  against 
them.  A  few  in  New  York,  a  little  more  in  Pennsylvania 
— that  is  all;  and  there  is  no  foundation  for  the  statement 
that  the  majority  of  them  fell  away.  As  to  the  South, 
neither  in  colonial  times  nor  in  the  first  quarter  of  this 
century  could  such  a  number  of  Catholics  have  settled 
there  as  to  justify  Bishop  England  in  putting  down  the 
loss  in  his  diocese  at  thirty-eight  tiiousand.  History 
furnishes  no  basis  for  the  statement. 

So  much  for  the  mission  period.  History  must  again 
be  our  guide  for  the  first  quarter  of  the  century ;  after 
that  we  may  trust  ourselves  to  statistics.  It  is  a  fact  of 
history  that  there  was  almost  no  immigration  from  Europe, 
and  much  less  Catholic  immigration,  from  1800  to  1820. 
During  that  period,  then,  having  made  no  great  gains,  we 
could  have  no  great  losses.  In  fact,  I  make  bold  to  say 
that  we  had  none  whatever,  but  held  our  own  and  more. 


494  ^^^  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

In  1820  Archbishop  Marechal  calculated  the  Catholic 
population  of  the  United  States,  exclusive  of  Louisiana 
and  the  diocese  of  Cincinnati,  to  be  169,500;  add  to  this 
the  Catholics  of  Louisiana  and  the  West,  and  we  get  for 
the  year  1820,  244,500.  Remember  that  in  1 790,  the  date 
of  Carroll's  consecration,  there  were,  according  to  him, 
about  30,000  in  his  diocese. 

After  the  year  1820  we  have  the  official  statistics  of 
immigration  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  our  calculations  of  the 
Catholic  population.  A  history  of  immigration  would  be 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  books.  We  may  say  that 
a  double  immigration  has  been  and  is  going  on  in  this 
country — an  internal  and  an  external.  Mr.  John  Bach 
McMasters,  in  his  masterly  "  History  of  the  People  of 
the  United  States,"  has  some  highly  attractive  pages  on 
both. 

A  few  words  here  about  immigration  from  Europe. 
The  distress  that  followed  on  the  ending  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars  in  Europe  sent  thousands  from  England  and  Germany 
to  the  United  States,  to  such  an  extent  that  the  British 
press  began  to  take  alarm  and  demand  parliamentary 
action  to  stop  "  the  ruinous  drain  of  the  most  useful  part 
of  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom."  Six  thousand 
emig-rants  were  said  to  have  left  Ireland  before  the  middle 
of  1816.  A  New  York  newspaper,  the  "  Shamrock,"  con- 
tained a  list  of  four  hundred  Irishmen  who  landed  at  New 
York  from  five  ships  between  the  lOth  and  the  17th  of 
August.  This  is  only  one  instance.  Many  of  those 
emigrants  were  poor  and  totally  unconscious  of  their 
future  bearings.  The  Society  of  United  Irishmen  of 
Philadelphia  and  the  Shamrock  Friendly  Association  of 
New  York  took  them  in  hand,  procuring  them  work  or 
forwarding  them  inland.  Other  societies  for  the  same  pur- 
pose sprang  into  existence,  such  as  the  Hibernian  Society 


SHEA'S   COMPUTATION.  495 

of  Baltimore,  the  Irish  Emigration  Association  of  New 
York,  and  Hke  societies  in  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg. 
Even  Congress  was  petitioned  by  these  associations  to 
give  aid  to  and  encourage  emigration  by  a  scheme — which 
was  not  enacted,  however — of  cheap  lands  and  long  credit. 

Until  the  year  1842  the  total  number  of  immigrants  in 
any  one  year  never  reached  100,000;  in  1844  it  fell  to 
78,000,  in  1845  it  exceeded  114,000,  in  1846  it  was 
154,000,  and  in  1847  234,968.  The  famine  in  Ireland 
sent  hundreds  of  thousands  of  that  unhappy  people  to  our 
shores,  and  in  the  emigration  thus  caused  we  have  the 
source  of  the  Catholic  development  and  the  occasion  of 
the  anti- Catholic  propaganda  that  mark  this  period.  In 
1849  the  number  of  immigrants  had  risen  to  297,024;  nor 
did  the  huge  stream  cease  to  flow  until  checked  by  the 
Civil  War ;  and  in  this  immigration  are  to  be  found  the 
reasons  for  the  issue  of  that  conflict — the  triumph  and 
preservation  of  the  Union.  The  newcomers  swelled  the 
national,  not  the  sectional,  forces  of  our  country.  They 
avoided  the  South ;  they  crowded  into  the  North  and  the 
Northwest,  creating  the  population  and  the  resources 
which  were  the  decisive  elements  in  the  struggle  between 
the  free  and  the  slave  States.  Immigration  was  the  salva- 
tion of  the  Union  ;  Know-nothingism,  if  successful,  might 
have  been  its  ruin,  for  without  the  emigrant  and  his  prog- 
eny in  the  North  the  South  might  have  triumphed. 

The  best  Catholic  authority  on  our  church's  history  that 
we  have  ever  had,  the  late  Gilmary  Shea,  working  from  the 
official  statistics  of  immigration  since  1820,  calculating  as 
best  he  could  the  percentage  of  Catholic  immigrants,^  and 

1  The  following  study,  taken  from  a  late  number  of  the  New  York 
"  Tribune,"  will  be  of  some  help  to  any  one  who  should  seek  to  get  at  the 
Catholic  contingent  in  the  total  immigration  from  Europe: 

"  About  a  third  of  the  entire  population  of  the  United  States  is  of  foreign 
parentage.     Thus  baldly  stated,  the  fact  may  strike  sonie  persons  as  danger- 


496  THE  ROMAN  CA  THOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

allowing  for  each  decade  a  natural  increase  of  one  third 
over  the  total  figures  with  which  the  decade  starts,  makes 
out  the  following  table  : 

Catholic  Population. 


In   1820  (according  to  Archbishop  Marechal's  calculation)  244.500 

1 830 361 ,000 

1840  1,000,000 

1850 1,726,470 

i860 3,000,000 

"    1870 4,685,000 

"    1880 7,067,000 

"    1890 10,627,000 

The  percentage  of  CathoUc  immigration  and  the  ratio  of  natural 
increase  adopted  by  Gilmary  Shea  would  make  the  figures  in  r895 
12,500,000. 

Such,  then,  according  to  Gilmary  Shea,  should  be  our 
present  Catholic  population.  The  question  arises,  Have 
we  in  reality  twelve  millions  of  members  to-day  in  the 
Catholic  Church?  Again,  the  question  may  be  put  to  us 
in  another  form :  Have  you  no  official  statistics  of  an  un- 
cus. But  the  proportion  has  increased  very  Httle  within  the  last  twenty 
years.  It  was  28.25  percent,  in  1870,  and  although  the  actual  immigration 
during  these  twenty  years  has  numbered  8,058,798,  the  proportion  has  only 
advanced  to  33.02  percent.  Moreover,  this  includes  not  only  the  immigrants 
themselves,  whether  young  or  old,  but  all  their  children  born  in  this  country, 
and  these  alone  number  over  11,500,000;  so  that  the  persons  of  foreign  birth 
number  only  14.4  percent,  of  the  entire  population,  or  about  one  seventh. 
It  is  rather  noteworthy  that  the  whole  number  of  foreign-born  persons  living 
in  this  country  is  only  a  million  greater  than  the  number  which  arrived  within 
the  twenty  years  preceding  the  census  of  1890.  Of  the  foreign-born  inhabit- 
ants, too,  a  considerable  percentage  must  be  of  children  born  abroad,  who 
came  hither  with  the  enormous  immigration  of  the  last  decade. 

"  Nevertheless,  the  fairest  test  of  the  proportion  of  foreign  blood  is  the  per- 
centage of  persons  of  foreign  parentage  to  the  total  population,  which  has 
increased  4.75  in  the  two  decades  of  largest  immigration.  But  the  figures 
become  somewhat  less  impressive  when  it  is  considered  how  this  addition 
from  aliroad  is  divided.  The  persons  of  foreign  parentage  who  are  of  Eng- 
lish speech,  and  have  either  come  hither  from  portions  of  Great  Britain  or  are 
the  children  of  persons  from  Great  Britain,  constitute  nearly  a  seventh  of  the 
whole  population — 13.63  per  cent. ,  including  the  English  Canadian  contingent. 


LOSS  AND   GAIN.  .  497 

doubted  authority  to  go  by  ?  We  are  forced  to  answer, 
No.  We  have,  it  is  true,  two  Cathohc  directories,  equally 
authorized  by  our  bishops,  Sadlier's  of  New  York  and 
Hoffman's  of  Milwaukee.  Ikit,  leaving  aside  the  consid- 
eration that  they  do  not  agree,  Sadlier's  giving  a  popu- 
lation of  10,964,000,  Hoffman's  giving  a  population  of 
9,077,865  ;  leaving  aside  this  other  consideration,  that  for 
many  years  the  same  dioceses  have  been  returning  the 
same  numbers  without  diminution  or  increase — a  very 
unlikely  result — the  directories  have  not  and  cannot  have 
the  character  of  an  exact  census,  because  their  statistics  are 
based  not  on  an  actual  count  of  members,  but  on  a  compu- 
tation made  by  the  diocesan  chancellors  from  the  recorded 
baptisms  for  each  year  as  returned  from  each  parish. 

Now  such  a  computation  is  worth  but  little  if  the  re- 
turns of  baptisms  from  the  parishes  are  not  correct,  and  if 
the  figure  used  as  a  multiplier  is  not  correct  and  uniform 
in  all  the  chanceries.  Neither  of  these  conditions  is  ascer- 
tained and  realized.  The  directories'  statistics,  therefore, 
are  but  conjecture,  mere  guesswork  more  or  less  approxi- 

The  Irish  and  their  children  are  7.85  percent,  of  the  entire  popuhition  ;  from 
England  proper  came  3.07  percent.,  from  Scotland  .96  percent.,  and  from 
Wales  .35  percent.,  while  1.5  percent,  came  from  Canada.  Thus  41.6  out 
of  every  100  persons  of  foreign  birth  or  parentage  are  from  Great  Britain, 
and  in  kinship  of  blood  and  in  speech  are  of  the  same  great  family  liy  which 
the  land  was  first  occupied  and  then  made  independent.  ]>ut  there  is  also  a 
fraction  of  mixed  foreign  parentage,  not  credited  to  either  foreign  country, 
which  constitutes  1.47  percent,  of  the  whole  population,  and  a  fair  share  of 
this  must  also  be  British  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Thus  something  more 
than  14  percent,  of  the  population  must  be  credited  to  parentage  or  immigra- 
tion from  Great  Britain,  against  less  than  19  percent,  from  all  other  parts  of 
the  world. 

"  Next  in  importance,  the  German  blood  closely  approaches  one  ninth  of  the 
population,  the  percentage  being  10.94,  about  a  third  of  the  whole  foreign 
contingent.  The  fact  will  not  be  overlooked  that  in  a  broad  sense  the  Eng- 
lish and  German  races  are  nearly  allied,  as  in  this  country  they  have  been 
ever  since  the  Revolution.  The  Teutonic  and  the  Anglo-Saxon,  including 
the  Irish,  thus  form  24.57  percent,  of  the  entire  population — almost  a  quar- 
ter— leaving  8.2  percent,  for  all  other  white  immigrants  and  their  children. 
Just  here  the  relative  insignificance  of  certain  strains  of  immigration  which 


498  THE  ROMAN  CA  TllOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

mative.  The  same  must  be  said  of  the  religious  census 
of  1890.  The  church  statistics  of  tliat  census  were  not 
gathered  by  the  census-takers  directly  from  the  individual 
inhabitants  of  the  land,  but  from  the  diocesan  chanceries. 
Coming,  therefore,  from  the  same  sources  as  the  statistics 
of  the  directories,  the  census  church  statistics  rest  on  the 
same  basis  and  possess  the  same  trustworthiness.  No 
li\'ing  man  knows  exactly,  or  with  any  scientific  nearness 
to  the  truth,  what  is  the  Catholic  population  of  the  land. 
Whether  it  could  not  be  got  at  if  only  the  bishops  should 
adopt  and  impose  a  uniform  method  of  census-taking  is  a 
question  we  do  not  stop  to  consider.  The  fact  is  as  I 
have  stated ;  and  the  fact  being  such,  any  student  of  our 
history  and  of  our  general  present  conditions  has  a  right 
to  give  his  guess  at  our  population.  I  venture  to  say  that 
we  have  to-day  twelve  millions  of  Catholics. 

We  have  no  doubt  had  some  losses ;  not,  however,  so 
extensive  as  claimed  by  the  writers  named  in  the  preced- 
ing pages.     The  losses  are  owing  mainly  to  the  following 

have  been  largely  discussed  of  late  comes  into  view.  In  a  few  great  centers 
are  found  crowds  of  Italians,  Hungarians,  Russians,  Bohemians,  or  Chinese; 
but  men  are  apt  to  forget  that  all  of  these  together  make  up  only  an  insignifi- 
cant part  of  the  population  even  when  their  children  are  included. 

"  Next  in  importance  to  the  German  is  what  may  be  termed  the  Scandinavian 
contingent,  including  from  Sweden  1.16  percent,  of  the  total  population, 
from  Norway  .95  percent.,  and  from  Denmark  .34  percent.  ;  in  all  2.45  per- 
cent, of  the  whole.  It  will  surprise  many  to  find  that  this  element  is  rela- 
tively as  large  as  that  drawn  from  all  other  parts  of  Europe,  except  Germany 
and  Great  Britain.  The  French  contingent  may,  indeed,  be  swelled  by  the 
addition  of  all  the  French  Canadians  and  their  children,  but  even  then  only 
reaches  1.23  percent,  of  the  population.  The  Russian  contingent,  .41  per- 
cent., the  Bohemian,  .34  percent.,  and  the  Hungarian,  .12  percent.,  cover 
what  maybe  called  the  Slavonic  element;  in  all  only  .87  percent.,  or  less 
than  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  population.  The  Italian,  .4  percent.,  if  reck- 
oned with  the  French  and  the  French  Canadians,  gives  a  total  of  only  1.63 
for  the  Latin  races.  Of  all  other  nations  there  are  1.78  percent,  of  the  total 
population,  part  being  from  Latin  and  a  small  part  from  Asiatic  races  ;  but  in 
the  aggregate  these  elements  are  insignificant  compared  with  the  67  percent, 
of  native  Americans  by  birth  and  parentage,  and  the  24.5  percent,  of  immi- 
grants from  Great  Britain  or  Germany  with  their  children." 


LOSS  AND   GAIN.  499 

causes  :  the  persecution  of  the  penal  period  ;  the  settlement 
of  Catholics,  even  before  the  organization  of  the  hierarchy, 
in  remote  places  where  there  were  no  means  of  Catholic 
life  and  training,  such  as  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  New 
England ;  the  want  of  church  organization  prior  to  the 
winning  of  our  independence;  the  scandals  and  schisms  of 
trusteeism  ;  the  inadequate  supply  of  priests  and  churches 
for  the  demands  of  an  overwhelming  immigration ;  the 
large  number  of  orphans  cast  adrift  and  fallen  into  non- 
Catholic  hands  upon  the  death  of  the  father  or  of  both 
parents  amid  the  hardships  of  a  new  climate,  of  canal- 
building  and  other  public  works,  and  amid  the  calamities 
of  war ;  intemperance ;  the  want  of  Catholic  education ; 
the  social  persecution  of  contempt  for  illiterate  Catliolics 
and  their  creed,  under  which  weak  ones  apostatized  or 
allowed  their  children  to  grow  up  without  any  or  with  a 
non- Catholic  religion.  Here  are  causes  enough,  and  more 
than  enough,  to  account  for  a  tremendous  leakage. 

Happily,  within  the  last  thirty  years  the  leaks  have  been 
repaired,  and  the  hope  is  warranted  that  future  losses  will 
be  small,  especially  since  the  church  has  assumed  a  broad 
attitude  on  the  great  question  that  concerns  the  masses, 
the  relation  of  capital  to  labor.  Indeed,  the  tide  has  set 
the  other  way  and  the  church  is  gaining.  To  quote  but 
two  instances :  Archbishop  Spalding  confirmed  in  five 
years  22,209  persons;  twelve  and  a  half  percent,  of  them 
were  converts.  Hardly  a  bishop  in  the  country  to-day 
but  could  tell  the  same  story.  Hoffman's  Directory  for 
1895  gives  for  some  dioceses  the  baptisms  of  adults.  I 
say  some  dioceses,  because  the  statistics  of  each  diocese 
are  compiled  at  the  pleasure  of  the  bishop  and  his  offi- 
cials, there  being  no  regulation  compelling  a  uniformity  of 
items  or  of  tabular  statement.  Now  the  adult  baptisms 
are    baptisms    of  converts.     They   are    reported    at    four 


500  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

thousand  in  twenty  of  the  least  populous  and  most  unim- 
portant dioceses  of  the  country.  In  fact,  it  is  only  such 
dioceses  that  seem  willing  to  give  information  on  the  score 
of  baptisms,  and  yet  it  is  from  the  basis  of  the  baptisms 
that  the  Catholic  population  is  computed. 

Yes,  we  have  had  our  losses.  But  what  church  in  the 
United  States  has  not  had  losses?  Does  the  Episcopalian, 
does  the  Lutheran,  hold  all  those  who  by  birth  or  ancestry 
should  be  within  these  two  denominations,  to  name  no 
others?  Many  a  Catholic  has  come  to  us  with  no  faith 
left,  with  nothing  but  the  name  of  a  Catholic  and,  of 
course,  the  baptism  received  in  infancy ;  and  after  touch- 
ing our  shores  has  ceased  to  consort  with  the  church  of 
his  native  country  and  his  fathers.  He  went  out  from  us 
not  into  any  Protestant  denomination,  but  into  the  vast 
crowd  of  no-churchmen,  the  largest  body  in  the  land. 
And  as  with  us,  so  has  it  happened  with  other  churches, 
especially  the  two  above  named.  The  losses  do  not  prove 
that  we,  any  more  than  they,  are  incompatible  with  the 
republican  form  and  spirit  of  this  government.  They 
prove  merely  that  man  is  free,  may  use  or  abuse  his  free- 
dom in  religion  as  in  other  matters ;  they  prove,  too,  that 
if  a  man  wishes  to  preserve  his  faith  for  himself  and  his 
children  he  must  choose  such  environments  of  places  and 
persons  as  shall  be  to  him  aids  instead  of  hindrances. 

Councils  are  ecumenical,  plenary  or  national,  and  pro- 
vincial. An  assembly  of  all  the  Catholic  bishops  of  the 
world,  convoked  by  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  or  at  least 
with  his  consent,  and  presided  over  by  him  or  his  legates, 
is  an  ecumenical  council.  An  assembly  of  all  the  bishops 
of  a  country — say  the  United  States — convoked  by  the 
primate  or  other  dignitary  commissioned  thereto  by  the 
Pope,  is  a  national  or  plenary  council.     An  assembly  of 


COUNCILS.  501 

all  the  bishops  within  the  territory  known  as  a  province, 
convoked  and  presided  over  by  the  metropolitan  or  arch- 
bishop, is  a  provincial  council.  An  assembly  of  all  the 
priests  of  a  diocese,  convoked  and  presided  over  by  the 
bishop,  is  a  diocesan  synod.  The  acts  of  an  ecumenical 
council,  to  be  binding-,  must  be  confirmed  or  approved  by 
the  Pope.  The  acts  of  plenary  and  provincial  councils 
must  be  submitted  to  the  holy  see  before  being  promul- 
gated ;  not  that  they  must  be  confirmed  by  the  holy  see, 
for  they  are  rarely  confirmed  in  a  formal  manner,  but  that 
whatever  may  be  too  strict  or  inaccurate  may  be  corrected. 
The  acts  of  diocesan  synods  need  not  be  submitted  to 
revision  by  the  holy  see. 

Ecumenical  councils  define  doctrine  and  deal  with  mat- 
ters of  discipline  concerning  the  church  in  the  whole  world. 
Plenary  and  provincial  councils  do  not  define,  but  at  most 
only  repeat  the  doctrine  defined  by  the  ecumenical  coun- 
cils; their  chief  purpose  is  to  apply  by  explicit  statutes  to 
each  country  or  province  the  universal  discipline  determined 
by  the  ecumenical  councils  and  the  holy  see,  or  to  initiate 
such  discipline  as  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  nation 
or  province  demand.  Diocesan  synods  promulgate  and 
apply  more  intimately  to  each  diocese  the  disciplinary 
enactments  of  the  holy  see,  the  ecumenical,  plenary,  and 
provincial  councils,  emphasizing  those  enactments  which 
the  specific  conditions  or  abuses  in  each  diocese  render 
most  necessary. 

Numerous  diocesan  synods  have  been  held  in  the  United 
States,  and  not  a  few  provincial  councils,  at  least  in  the 
older  provinces ;  and  tli'ree  plenary  councils  have  been 
held  within  the  first  century  of  the  organized  hierarchy. 
The  collection  of  the  acts  of  those  various  assemblies  is  an 
important  source  of  our  church  history.  Since  provincial 
councils  are,  generally  speaking,  promulgations,  and  there- 


502  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxiX. 

fore  repetitions,  with  such  modifications  as  special  cir- 
cumstances of  the  province  require,  of  the  enactments 
of  plenary  councils,  and  since  the  same  may  be  said  of 
diocesan  synods  with  respect  to  provincial  councils,  it 
follows  that  a  fair  idea  of  American  canon  law  may  be 
gained  from  the  exclusive  study  of  the  three  plenary 
councils.  It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  First 
Plenary  Council  has  its  genesis  in  the  provincial  councils 
of  Baltimore  that  preceded  it,  and  these,  again,  have  their 
genesis  in  the  First  Diocesan  Synod  of  Baltimore,  held  at 
the  time  when  there  was  in  the  country  but  that  one  dio- 
cese. Hence  the  First  Synod,  the  First,  Second,  Third, 
Fourth,  Fifth,  Sixth,  and  Seventh  Provincial  Councils,  and 
the  First,  Second,  and  Third  Plenary  Councils  of  Baltimore 
form  the  absolutely  necessary  and  the  comparatively 
suflficient  body  of  documents  for  a  complete  study  of  the 
ecclesiastical  legislation  under  which  live  the  Catholics  of 
the  United  States. 

The  procedure  and  working  of  the  American  councils 
are  not  unlike  those  of  an  ordinary  legislative  body.  Let 
me  briefly  describe  the  method  of  a  plenary  council.  A 
petition  is  laid  by  the  hierarchy  before  the  holy  see,  or  an 
order  comes  to  it  from  Rome,  for  the  holding  of  an 
assembly  of  all  the  bishops  of  the  country.  Papal  letters 
appoint  and  commission  a  president  with  the  title  and 
powers  of  an  apostolic  delegate ;  he  may  be  one  sent  by 
the  Pope  from  abroad ;  so  far  he  has  been  the  Archbishop 
of  Baltimore.  The  president  delegate  apostolic  of  the 
First  Plenary  Council  was  Archbishop  Kenrick,  of  the 
Second  Archbishop  Spalding,  of'  the  Third  Archbishop 
(only  after  the  council  Cardinal)  Gibbons.  Generally 
instructions  on  certain  points  which  the  holy  see  wants 
particularly  to  be  considered  and  legislated  on  by  the 
assembly  are  sent  to  the  appointed  president;  or,  as  was 


PROCEDURE   OE  COUNCILS.  503 

the  case  just  before  the  Third  Plenary  Council,  the  arch- 
bishops and  other  representative  men  are  called  to  Rome 
to  discuss  such  points  with  the  Roman  authorities. 

Thus  commissioned  and  instructed,  the  president  issues 
to  all  who  are  duly  entitled  to  sit  as  members  of  the 
assembly  letters  of  convocation  commanding  their  presence 
at  a  fixed  date.  Meanwhile  the  best  theologians  and 
canonists  of  the  country  are  at  work,  by  order  and  under 
the  presidency  of  the  delegate,  outlining  and  drafting  in 
preliminary  form  the  bills,  so  to  speak,  that  are  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  consideration  and  discussion  of  the  bishops. 
These  are  called  scJicniata,  and  are  afterward  delivered, 
printed,  to  each  member  in  the  first  public  session  of  the 
council.  This  first  solemn  session  is  usually  taken  up  with 
a  procession  into  the  cathedral,  pontifical  high  mass,  the 
naming  of  the  officials,  the  taking  of  the  required  oaths, 
and  a  sermon.  Sermons  are  delivered  throughout  the 
holding  of  the  council  on  Sundays  and  certain  other  festi- 
val days  by  prominent  members,  and,  of  course,  may  be 
attended  by  the  public.  The  officials  of  a  council,  corre- 
sponding to  the  sergeants,  clerks,  and  other  minor  officers 
of  our  legislative  bodies,  are  promoter,  judges  of  excuses 
and  complaints,  notary,  secretary,  chancellor,  master  of 
ceremonies,  and  chanter. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  real  business  of  the  council, 
standing  rules  are  adopted,  as  to  the  hours  of  meeting, 
the  order  of  debate,  etc.,  and  various  committees  are  ap- 
pointed, between  whom  are  divided  the  questions  to  be 
legislated  on,  that  is  to  say,  the  already  drafted  bills. 
We  may  say  that  the  council  sits  (i)  in  private  committees, 
(2)  in  committee  of  the  whole,  and  (3)  in  public  conciliar 
sessions,  when  the  enactments  decided  on  by  the  committee 
of  the  w4iole  and  the  private  committees  are  finally  and 
solemnly  passed  on.      When  the  whole  work  is  done  and 


504  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

the  council  has  closed,  the  minutes  of  the  debates,  called 
the  acta,  and  the  bills  passed,  called  the  decreta,  are  sent 
to  Rome.  There  they  are  minutely  considered  by  com- 
missions of  cardinals  and  theologians,  who  may  make 
amendments,  usually  very  slight  and  in  the  wording  rather 
than  in  the  matter.  Their  report  is  submitted  to  the  Pope  ; 
his  approval  is  not,  however,  meant  to  be  such  an  act  as 
entails  papal  infallibility.  The  decrees,  after  having  been 
thus  scrutinized  and  confirmed  by  the  holy  see,  are  sent 
back  to  the  president  of  the  council,  are  by  him  promul- 
gated and  communicated  to  all  the  bishops,  and  thence- 
forth become  law.  Provincial  councils  and  diocesan 
synods  make  further  promulgation  and  application  of 
these  decrees  to  each  province  and  diocese ;  and  thus 
priests  and  laymen  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  legisla- 
tion that  rules  their  church  life. 

The  legislation  of  our  councils  has  been  universally 
praised,  and  is  held  up  by  Rome  as  a  model  to  the  churches 
of  Australia  and  South  America,  which,  like  our  own,  are 
seeking  to  adapt  the  unchanging  doctrine  and  the  essential 
discipline  of  Christianity  to  the  needs  and  aspirations  of 
modern  times,  to  the  new  environments  of  virgin  lands 
and  young  nations.  This  legislation — I  am  speaking  only 
of  the  first  seven  provincial  and  the  three  plenary  councils 
of  Baltfmore,  for  the  many  other  provincial  councils  and 
diocesan  synods  would  make  a  vaster  bulk — fills  three 
octavo  volumes  containing  twelve  hundred  and  sixt}' 
l)ages,  an  extensive  code  for  our  first  century.  I  cannot 
be  expected  to  enter  into  details.  One  remark  only.  A 
comparison  of  the  enactments  of  the  Third  Plenary  Coun- 
cil with  the  earliest  laws  laid  down  in  the  provincial  council 
that  preceded  it  reveals  that  the  former  are  a  gradual  devel- 
opment of  the  latter  along  the  same  lines.  There  has  been 
no  withdrawal  from  original  positions,  except  in  a  very  few 


CHARACTER   OF    THE   LEGISLATION.  505 

instances  and  when  altered  circumstances  in  the  countr\- 
and  the  church's  relations  to  the  country  demanded  a  re- 
vision. All  the  important  matters  so  thoroughly  legislated 
on  in  our  last  council  will  be  found  pointedly  or  impliedly 
mentioned  in  the  first  a  hundred  years  ago. 

It  is  a  most  interesting  study  to  take  up  and  follow, 
council  by  council,  such  questions  as  the  canonical  status 
of  priests,  their  relations  to  bishops,  the  evolution  of  the 
metropolitan  and  his  rights,  the  tenure  of  church  property, 
relations  between  the  hierarchy  and  the  religious  orders 
of  men  and  women,  education,  seminaries,  the  university. 
Temperance,  for  instance,  was  brought  under  conciliar 
legislation,  and  total  abstinence  societies  were  recom- 
mended for  the  first  time,  in  the  Fourth  Provincial  Council 
of  1840;  the  whole  country  knows  what  minute  and  strin- 
gent legislation  has  been  passed  on" this  point  by  the  Third 
Plenary  Council,  and  how  strictly  that  legislation  was 
interpreted  but  the  other  day  by  the  apostolic  delegate, 
the  Most  Rev.  Mgr.  Satolli,  in  the  famous  Columbus  case. 
Parochial  schools  w^ere  made  matter  of  legislation  for  the 
first  time  in  the  First  Provincial  Council  of  1829  ;  since  then 
they  ha\e  been  a  standing  subject  in  every  council ;  and 
in  these  latter  years  further  development  and  interpreta- 
tion have  been  given  to  former  legislation  by  the  well- 
known  decisions  of  the  holy  see  in  the  late  school  contro- 
versy, and  by  the  apostolic  delegate,  whose  practical  rulings 
in  specific  cases  relating  to  Catholic  education  have  been 
even  more  explicit  and  emphatic,  if  that  were  possible, 
than  his  famous  Fourteen  Propositions.  In  a  word,  if 
there  has  been,  during  the  first  century  of  our  existence, 
growth  in  membership,  clergy,  and  hierarchy,  and  if  that 
growth  has  been  marvelous,  so  also  there  has  been  no  less 
marvelous  growth  in  disciplinary  legislation,  which  is  to 
outward  extension  what  the  soul  is  to  the  body. 


5o6  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS.  [Chap.  xxix. 

The  preceding  pages  have  described  mostly  the  bodily 
growth  of  the  church.  Now  the  study  of  man's  body  and 
its  manifestations  in  speech  and  features  is  the  ordinary 
index  to  a  knowledge  of  the  soul,  its  thoughts  and  habits. 
But  he  will  know  a  man  best  who  can  pierce  through  the 
outward  vesture  and,  like  the  psychologist,  seize  in  the 
grip  of  mental  abstraction  the  spiritual  principle  of  life. 
A  thorough  and  scientific  and  psychological  knowledge  of 
the  church  in  the  United  States  would  demand  more  than 
I  have  given — more  than  the  consideration  of  its  hierarch- 
ical extension ;  would  require  a  minute  study  of  its  legis- 
lation and  interior  discipline,  to  which  should  be  added  an 
examination  of  those  defined  doctrines  which  are  received 
by  us  here  in  the  United  States,  no  less  than  by  Catholics 
the  world  over.  The  result  of  such  a  study,  I  feel  confi- 
dent, would  be  to  prove  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  in 
accord  with  Christ's  revelation,  with  American  liberty, 
and  is  the  strongest  moral  power  for  the  preservation  of 
the  republic  from  the  new  social  dangers  that  threaten 
the  United  States  as  well  as  the  whole  civilized  world. 
She  has  not  grown,  she  cannot  grow,  so  weak  and  old  that 
she  may  not  maintain  what  she  has  produced — Christian 
civilization. 


INDEX. 


Abenakis,  131, 133,  135,  137,  139, 141  ; 
war  with  Massachusetts,  142,  146. 

Abstinence,  132. 

Acadia,  125,  129,  130,  137,  240. 

Acoma,  46. 

"  Act  to  prevent  the  growth  of  pop- 
ery," 236. 

Agretti,  Claudius,  229. 

Alabama,  i. 

Albanel,  Father,  187. 

Alemany,  Joseph  Sadoc,  420,  464. 

Alexander  VI.,  4,  il,  58. 

Algonquins,  131,  150,  160,  164. 

Allefonse,  Jean,  116. 

Allouez,  Claude,  170,  171,  174,  195. 

Altham,  Father,  220,  222. 

Aniat,  Thaddeus,  480. 

Americanism,  42,  274,  278,  298. 

Andastes,  164. 

Andre,  170. 

Andres,  Governor,  230. 

Antilia,  50. 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  262. 

Apaches,  62,  65,  68,  80,  84. 

Apostolic  Delegation,  274,  472. 

Appalachees,  211. 

Argall,  Samuel,  128. 

Arizona,  i,  16,  52,  68,  76,  81. 

"  Ark,"  220. 

Arkansas,  207. 

Arnold,  256. 

Arundel,  Lord,  264. 

Ashton,  Father,  241. 

Ashton,  John,  271. 

Aul)rey,  Nicholas,  125. 

Aiigustinians,  280. 

Aveneau,  189. 

Aviles,  Menendez  de,  29,  35. 


Ayllon,  Vasquez  de,  19;    his  cedula, 

20. 
Aztecs,  60. 

Bacon,  Uavid  W.,  452. 
Badin,  Stephen,  285,  393. 
Bailloquet,  Father,  187. 
Baltimore,    building    of    the   city    of, 

241. 
Baltimore,  division  of  the  see  of,  291. 
Baltimore,    Lord,    218;     grant,    219, 

221,  225. 
Bapst,  Father,  453. 
Baraga,  Frederic,  453,  456. 
Barbastro,  Luis  Cancer  de,  26. 
Bardstown,  see  of,  291,  324. 
Barry,  John,  442. 
Baxter,  Jervis,  230. 
Baxter,  Joseph,  140. 
Bayley,  Bishop,  376,  474. 
Becker,  Thomas  A.,  475. 
Bedini,  Cajetan,  427  ;  report,  428,  460. 
Behring,  Vitus,  91. 
Bellomont,  Earl  of,  243. 
Beltran,  Father,  55. 
Benavides,  Alonso,  58. 
Benedict  XIV.,  247. 
Benedictus  Dens,  342. 
Bennett,  228. 
Bergier,  208. 

Biard,  Peter,  125,  128,  131. 
Biencour,  Jean  de,  Sieur  de  Pourtrin- 

court,  118,  125,  127,  130. 
Bimini,  17. 

Binneteau,  Julian,  197. 
lilanc,  Anthony,  399,  443. 
Blanchet,   Francis  Norbert,  421,  422, 

463- 
Blanchet,  M.  A.,  480. 

507 


5o^ 


INDEX. 


Bond,  Dr.,  372. 

Bonito,  63. 

Boone,  John,  259. 

Boston,  diocese  of,  309, 

Boston,  see  of,  291. 

Bouteville,  208. 

Breda,  Treaty  of,  163, 

Brennan.  T.  F.,  479. 

Brent,  Robert,  239. 

Bressani,  Father,  151. 

Brion-Chabot,  Philippe  de,  1 16. 

Brock,  Father  Julm,  222. 

Brockholls,  Anthony,  230. 

Brouwers,  Theodore,  283. 

Brownson,  Orestes  A.,  376. 

Brule,  169. 

Bruyas,  Father,  160. 

Bruyn,  John  de,  393. 

Buffalo,  see  of,  378. 

Burke,  Edmund,  250. 

Burke,  Thomas  A.,  476. 

Byrne,  Andrew,  403. 

Cabot,  114,  129. 

Cabrillo,  Juan  Roilriguez,  90. 

Cadillac,  La  Motte,  188. 

Cadwalader,  General,  358. 

Caffrey,  Mr.,  290. 

California,  i,  16,  80  ;  name,  89  ;  explo- 
ration, 91  ;  missions,  92;  four  pre- 
sidios, three  puelilos,  95  ;  teaching, 
96  ;  policy,  97  ;  official  report,  99  ; 
architecture,  100 ;  statistics,  104, 
III,  419;   revolution,  106. 

Calvert,  Governor  Leonard,  220,  224, 
225,  237. 

Calvert,  Sir  John,  217. 

Cantino  map,  17. 

Capuchins,  130,  134,  210,  211. 

Cardenas,  Bishop  Louis  Penalver  y, 
214. 

Carles,  Anthony,  288. 

Carmelites,  93,  210,  338. 

Carmenon,  Rodriguez,  90,  93. 

Carrell,  George  Aloysius,  455. 

Carroll,  Charles,  238,  239,  253,  257, 
^  263. 

Carroll,  Daniel,  257,  294. 

Carroll,  John,  232,  239,  245,  252,  259, 
261;  life,  263;  prefect  apostolic, 
266  ;  "  Relation  on  the  State  of  Re- 
ligion in  the  United  States,"  268; 
trusteeism,  269;   nationalism,   270; 


consecration,  272;  episcopate,  275; 
visit  to  Boston,  277 ;  eulogy  of 
Washington,  289;   death,  297. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  116,  168. 

Castelli,  Cardinal,  249. 

Catholic  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  257. 

Catholiae  Fidei,  281. 

Cayugas,  155,  161. 

Chabrat,  Guy  Ignatius,  389. 

Challoner,  Bishop,  246,  247,  259,  302. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  117,  118,  119, 
122,  148,  168. 

Chanche,  John  Joseph,  402. 

Chardou,  Father,  189,  200. 

Charleston,  see  of,  300,  306 ;  Consti- 
tution, 308. 

Charlestown  convent,  382. 

Charlevoix,  190,  196;  "  Mistoire  de 
la  Nouvelle  France,"  200,  206. 

Chase,  Samuel,  253. 

Chatard,  Bishop,  477. 

Chaumonot,  Father,  156. 

Cheverus,  Bishop,  146. 

Cheverus,  John,  281,  291,  309. 

Chicago,  see  of,  414. 

Chickasaws,  206,  211. 

Chilomacon,  222. 

Chippeways,  169,  456. 

Choctaws,  206,  211. 

Chouteau,  Auguste,  203. 

Cibola,  51,  53. 

Cincinnati,  see  of,  327. 

Ciquard,  Francis,  277. 

Civil  War,  431,  465. 

Civilization,  barbarism,  savagery,  48. 

Claiborne,  William,  219,  224,  228. 

Cleary,  Patrick,  288. 

Clement  XIV.,  102,  254,  264,  302. 

Cleveland,  see  of,  388. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  314. 

Commercial  Company  of  the  West, 
•  209. 

Common  Prayer,  Book  of,  235. 

Concanen,  Richard  Luke,  291,  294. 

"  Congress  Own,"  252,  255. 

Connolly,  295,  300,  314. 

Conroy,  J.  J.,  449. 

"  Constitution  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  .  .  .  comprised  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Charleston,"  308. 

Continental  Congress,  252,  254,  261. 


INDEX. 


5<'9 


"  Conversion  of  St.  Paul,"  58. 

Converts  in  New  York,  376. 

Conwell,  Henry,  297,  318,  322. 

Coode,  233. 

Cooper,  Father,  224. 

Copley,  Fatlier,  224. 

Copley,  Sir  Lionel,  234. 

Coronado,  52,  57,  76,  79. 

Corrigan,  M.  A.,  476. 

Cousin,  115. 

Couture,  (juillaume,  150. 

Creeks,  206. 

"  Crepusculo,"  74. 

Crespi,  Juan,  92. 

Crespo,  Bishop  Benedict,  69. 

Cretin,  Joseph,  417,  461. 

Cubero,  68. 

Custis,  Mr.,  289. 

Cyril  of  Barcelona,  213. 

D'Aillebout,  Governor,  158, 

Dablon,  Father,  156,  170. 

Dagobert,  Father,  213. 

Dale,  Thomas,  128. 

David,  Bishop,  389. 

David,  John  B.,  295,  317,  326. 

Davion,  208. 

Davis,  Governor,  383. 

De  abolcnda  Socictatc  Jcsii,  302. 

De  Beaubois,  200,  210. 

De  Iiois-Iiriant,  200,  201. 

De  Carheil,  161,  165,  187. 

De  Kereben,  200. 

De  Montigny,  208. 

De  Vargas,  66. 

Delhalle,  Father,  188,  189. 

Deniers,  Modeste,  421. 

Denonville,  Governor,  165. 

Des  Groseillers,  120. 

Detroit,  see  of,  341. 

Didier,  Doin,  297. 

Diego,  Don  Francisco  Garcia,  ill. 

Digger  Indians,  105- 

Dilhet,  John,  287. 

Diocesan  synod,  277- 

Diocese  of  Baltimore,  276. 

Domenec,  Michael,  439. 

Dominicans,  21,  25,  27,  94,  280. 

Dominus  ac  Redeiiiptor,  254- 

Dongan,  Governor,  164,  231. 

Doria,  Prince  Pamphilio,  261. 

Douay,  183,  207. 

Douglas,  William,  230. 


"  Dove,"  220. 

Drake,  Francis,  90,  93. 

Drontheiin,  6. 

Druillcttes,  Father,  131,  132,  133, 
134,  146,  170. 

Drunkenness  among  tlie  Indians,  162. 

Du  Bourg,  William,  293,  304,  322, 
329;  resignation,  331. 

Du  Quentin,  Father,  127. 

Du  Rhu,  208. 

Du  Thet,  Gilbert,  127,  128. 

Dubois,  John,  287,  305,  363  ;  lectures 
on  trusteeism,  369 ;  school  ques- 
tion, 370. 

Dubuque,  see  of,  343,  392. 

Duchesne,  Mme.,  330. 

Dudley,  Governor,  136. 

Duggan,  James,  458. 

Duluth,  120,  185. 

Dupoisson,  211. 

Durango,  see  of,  59,  69. 

Eccleston,  Samuel,  343,  347. 

Echeverria,  Bishop  James  Joseph  de, 
213. 

Egan,  Dr.,  292,  294. 

Elder,  William  Henry,  444. 

Emory,  Mr.,  292,  294. 

England,  John,  297,  300,306;  press, 
307  ;  Constitution,  308,  349  ;  works, 

351- 
English     elements     in     the     Roman 

Catholic  Church     in    America,    2 ; 

policy,  224;   act  of  toleration,  225  ; 

oath    of  office,    227;    repeal,   228; 

persecution,  236. 
Enjalran,  Father,  187. 
Ericsson,  Leif,  4. 
Erie,  diocese  of,  439. 
Eries,  154,  164. 
Escalona,  Father  John  de,  57. 
Estufa,  63. 

Ex  dchito  Pastoralis  Officii,  309. 
Fages,  98. 

Farmer,  Father,  256. 
Feehan,  Patrick  Augustine,  459,  477. 
Fenwick,  Father,  285,  305.  311,  379, 

387- 
Ferrelo,  90. 

Fifth  Provincial  Council,  344. 
FirstPlenaryCouncilof  Baltimore,  274. 
First  Provincial  Council  of  Baltimore, 

274;  letter  to  Pius  VIH.,  336. 


5IO 


INDEX. 


Fisher,  Father,  222. 

Fitzpatrick,  John  V.,  384,  451. 

Fitzsimmons,  Thomas,  257,  273. 

Five  Nations,  137,  150,  157. 

Flaget,  Benedict  Joseph,  286,  292, 
324,  389,  391. 

Florida,  i,  15;  name,  17,  19,  20;  poli- 
tical and  commercial  importance, 
24,  27;  Huguenots,  29;  permanent 
Spanish  settlement,  34  ;  the  school, 
35  ;  St.  Augustine,  40;  bishops,  41, 
42. 

Foley,  John  S.,  477. 

Fotteral,  Edward,  241. 

Foucault,  Nicholas,  209. 

"  Fountain  of  youth,"  17,  50. 

Fournier,  Michael,  285. 

Fourth  Provincial  Council,  343  ;  pas- 
toral letter,  344. 

Foxes,  190. 

Franciscans,  ^t,,  35,  38,  42,  45,  55, 
59,  61,  78,  94,  106. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  253,  257,  266. 

Franquelin,  174. 

Fremin,  Father,  160,  165. 

French  element  in  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  in  America,  I,  1 14;  ex- 
plorations, 116;  first  colony,  117; 
the  two  routes,  119;  alliance  with 
the  Hurons,  122. 

Fromm,  Francis,  283. 

Frontenac,  Governor,  183,  189. 

Gabriels,  H.,  476. 

Gage,  Father,  231. 

Gage,  Thomas,  204. 

Gali,  Francisco,  90. 

Gallagher,  Mr.,  288. 

Gallagher,  N.  A.,  479. 

Gallitzin,  Prince,  281. 

Galloway,  Joseph,  255. 

Galtier,  Lucien,  417. 

Galves,  Jose  de,  91. 

Garakontie,  159. 

Garces,  Padre,  80. 

Gardar,  4,  6,  11. 

Garnier,  Father  Julian,  161,  165. 

Gartland,  F.  X.,  351. 

Gavazzi,  428. 

Georgia,  43. 

German  diocese  for  Germans,  280. 

Gibault,  Peter,  205,  251,  286. 

Gibbons,  Edward,  132,  135. 


Gibbons,  James,  474,  486,  501. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  2I7« 

"Gilded  Man,  The,"  51. 

Glorien,  A.  J.,  480. 

Goetz,  Father,  279. 

Gomez,  Francisco,  92. 

Goupil,  Rene,  150. 

Grace,  Thomas  L.,  461. 

Graessel,  Lawrence,  278. 

Gravier,  Father,  197. 

Greaton,  Father,  244. 

Greenland,  3 ;  first  bishop,  4 ;  last 
bishop,  II. 

Gregory  XIV.,  1 11. 

Gregory  XVI.,  390,  392,  402. 

Grenolle,  169. 

Gross,  W.  H.,  480. 

Guadalajara,  see  of,  58. 

Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  Treaty  of,  75, 
418. 

Guast,  Pierre  du,  Sieur  de  Monts, 
124. 

Guignas,  Father  Louis,  191. 

Guy  Fawkes's  day,  252. 

Guymonneau,  Father,  200. 

Hailandiere,  Guynemer  de  la,  396. 

Hale,  Charles,  451. 

Harper  Brothers,  365. 

Harrison,  Father,  231. 

Hart,  Governor,  238. 

Hartwell,  Father,  224. 

Harvey,  Thomas,  230. 

Heath,  James,  239. 

Helbron,  Father,  279. 

Hennepin,  175,  179,  181,  183;  life 
and  works,  186. 

Hennessey,  John,  461,  478. 

Henni,  John  Martin,  415. 

Heslin,  Thomas,  479. 

Heyden,  Thomas,  402. 

Hogan,  J.  J.,  478. 

Hogan,  William,  318,  322. 

Horstmann,  Ignatius  F.,  477. 

Hotel  Dieu,  366. 

Hoyt,  William  K.,  366. 

Hughes,  Bishop,  374,  375,  420;  char- 
acter, 432,  446 ;   in  Paris,  448. 

Huguenots,  126. 

Hunter,  Father,  235. 

Hurons,  122,  147,  154,  157,  169. 

Iberville,  207,  208. 

Illinois,  164,  182,  194. 


INDEX. 


511 


Immigration,  340,  412,  494. 
Inglesi,  A.,  322. 
Innocent  VIII.,  10,  11. 

Inter  Miiltiplices,  327. 

Irish  Cahenslyism,  295. 

Irocjuois,    120,    121;     location,    122, 

I3i>  133.  I35>  148,  152,  154.  157. 
161,  164,  166,  182. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  340. 

Jansenists,  300. 

Janssens,  P'.,  478. 

Jay,  John,  251. 

Jay's  treaty,  286. 

Jemez,  63. 

Jesuits,  34,  77,  loi,  119,  125,  131, 
136,  138,  161,  162,  165,  166,  171, 
189,  201,  210,  211,  222,  224,  230, 
238,  254,  280,  302,  328. 

Jogues,  Isaac,  149,  150,  152,  153. 

John  XXL,  6. 

John  of  Padilla,  53. 

Joliet,  120,  175. 

Juchereau,  Sieur,  199. 

Juncker,  Henry  Damien,  459. 

Kavanagh,  Mr.,  282. 

Keane,  J.  J.,  475. 

Keating,  Mr.,  288. 

Kelly,  P.,  297,  300. 

Kenrick,  Francis  Patrick,  347,  352  ; 
proclamations,  358,  359 ;  visit  to 
Rome,  360 ;  transferred  to  Balti- 
more, 361,  431  ;   character,  432. 

Kenrick,  Peter  Richard,  408. 

Ketch um,  Mr.,  372. 

Klckapoos,  190,  192,  199. 

Kino,  Father,  77. 

Know-nothingism,  341,  365,  428,  450, 

454- 
Kohlman,  Father  Anthony,  313;   de- 
cisions concerning  the  confessional, 

314- 
L' Enfant,  290. 
La  Fleche,  126. 
La  Perouse,  105. 
La  Salle,  82,  120,  121,  175;   life,  178; 

voyages,  180;  death,  184,  196. 
La  Saussaye,  127- 
La  Trappe,  Order  of,  460,  461. 
Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  330,  338. 
Lalande,  155. 

Lamberville,  John  de,  165. 
Lamy,  John  B.,  419,  462. 


Land  and  property,  97. 

"  Land  of  War  "  (Vera  Paz),  25,  26. 

Laperriere,  191. 

Las  Casas,  14,  25. 

Launay,  Peter  du,  191. 

Lauverjat,  Father,  139,  143,  144. 

Laval,  Bishop,  200. 

Lazarists,  331. 

Le  Boulanger,  200. 

Le  Caron,  147. 

Le  Franc,  191. 

Le  Mercier,  288. 

Le  Moine,  Abbe,  288. 

Le  Moyne,  Father  Simon,  155,  159. 

Le  Sueur,  191. 

Lee,  Thomas  Sim,  257. 

Lefevre,  Peter  Paul,  393. 

Legends  and  fables  in  discovery,  50. 

Leisler,  233. 

Leo  X.,  58. 

Leo  XII.,  334. 

Leon,  Ponce  de,  17. 

Leopoldine  Society,  378,  387. 

Leray,  F.  X.,  479. 

"  Lettres    Edifiantes    et    Curieuses," 

196,  198. 
Levadoux,  286. 
Levins,  Thomas  C,  364. 
Lewis,  Mr.,  260. 
Leyburn,  Dr.  John,  232. 
"  Liber  Censuum,"  7. 
Liguest,  Pierre  Laclede,  203. 
Line,  the  French,  120,  121. 
Logan,  244. 

London,  company  of,  129. 
Loras,  Mathias,  411,460. 
Loretto,  338. 
Loughlin,  John,  476. 
Louisiana,  186,  203,  206,  293. 
Lovelace,  Governor,  162. 
Ludden,  P.  A.,  476. 
Luers,  John  Henry,  457. 
Luna,  Tristan  de,  28. 
Lynch,  Dominick,  273. 
Lynch,  Patrick  N.,  441,  474. 
Maes,  C.  P.,  477. 
Majollo  map,  116. 
Manogue,  Bishop,  480. 
Marbois,  Barbe  de,  266,  295. 
Marechal,  Ambrose,  295,  300. 
Marest,  Father,  187,  198. 
Margil,  Father  Anthony,  83. 


512 


INDEX. 


Mark  of  Nizza,  Father,  51,  53,  76. 
Marquette,    Father,    170,    173,    175; 

"Voyage,"  176;  grave,  178,  195. 
Martin  IV.,  6. 
Martinez,  Father,  56,  76. 
Mascoutins,  190,  192,  199. 
Masse,  Enemond,  126,  128. 
Massey,  Father,  229. 
Mathew,  Father,  398. 
Mathews,  Mr.,  290. 
Matignon,  Francis  A.,  281. 
Mauvila,  battle  of  the,  23. 
Mazanet,  Daniian,  83. 
Mazzuchelli,  Father,  411. 
I\IcCIoskey,  John,  364,  374,  376,  448, 

476. 
McDonnell,  Charles  E.,  476. 
McFarland,  Francis  P.,  451. 
McFaul,  James,  476. 
McGavvley,  Elizabeth,  244. 
McCxerry,  J.,  364. 
McGill,  Bishop,  440,  474. 
McGill,  John,  349. 
McQuaid,  R.  J.,  476. 
Medicine  of  the  Black  Robes,  153. 
Medicine-men,  63,  65,  161. 
Membre,  Zenobius,  179,  181. 
Menard,  Father,  170. 
Mendoza,  50. 
Mermet,  Father,  198. 
Method  of  selecting  candidates  for  the 

episcopate,  466. 
Meurin,  Father,  205. 
Miamis,  164,  190,  194. 
Micmacs,  127,  136. 
Miles,  Richard  Pius,  410,  459. 
Milet,  Father,  161. 
Minister  resident  in  Rome,  427. 
"  Mission  of  Our  Lady  of  Ganentaa," 

157- . 
"  Mission  of  the  Martyrs,"  152. 
Mississippi,  18,  23. 
Mobilian  family,  206. 
Mohawks,  151,  153,  155,  160. 
Molyneux,  Robert,  271. 
Monk,  Maria,  365. 
Monterey,  90,  93. 
Montesinos,  Antonio,  21. 
Montgomery,  George,  480. 
Montmagny,  Governor,  152. 
Montreal  (Mount  Royal),  117. 
Monls,  Sieur  de^  118. 


Moore,  Bishop,  475. 

Moore,  Governor,  40. 

Moqui,  68,  70,  71,  78. 

Morfi,  Padre,  72. 

Mornay,  Duplessis  de,  210. 

Moulton,  Colonel,  143. 

Moultrie,  Governor,  335. 

Narvaez,  Pamfilo  de,  22,  82. 

Nashville,  see  of,  343. 

Natchez,  206. 

Natchez,  see  of,  344. 

Nationalism,  270,  278. 

Native  Americanism,  341,  352,  356 ; 
riot,  357,.  375- 

Navajo  Indians,  45. 

Neale,  Bishop,  239,  299. 

Neale,  Leonard,  278,  287,  290. 

Neckere,  Raymond  de,  399. 

Nerinok,  Charles,  285. 

Neumann,  Bishop,  437. 

Neutrals,  147. 

New  England  Company,  218. 

New  Mexico,  i,  16,  22,  45  ;  first  ex- 
pedition, 52;  name,  55;  mission 
statistics,  59  ;  insurrection,  64  ;  sub- 
jection,  68;   statistics,  71,  73,  418, 

463- 

New  York,  see  of,  291,  312. 

Nicholas  \ .,  9. 

Nicollet,  120. 

Nicolls,  Colonel,  163. 

Norsemen  in  America,  3 ;  their  influ- 
ence, 4. 

North,  Lord,  250. 

North,  the  church  of  the,  425,  446. 

Northrop,  H.  P.,  474. 

Norumbega,  116,  217. 

Nouvel,  Father,  187. 

Nuncio,  427. 

O'Connell,  Eugene,  464. 

O'Connor,  Michael,  360,  361,  438. 

O'Farrell,  M.  J.,  476. 

O'Gorman,  James  Michael,  461. 

O'Meally,  J^,  322. 

O'Meara,  413. 

O'Reilly,  Bishop,  386,  451. 

O'Reilly,  Governor,  212. 

Odin,  John  M.,  11^,,  344,  406. 

Oglethorpe,  James,  43. 

Ohio,  diocese  of,  327. 

Olivier,  Donatien,  286.. 

Olivier,  John,  290. 


INDEX. 


5'3 


Ofiate,  Don  Juan  de,  56,  76. 
Oneidas,  155,  295. 
Onondagas,  155,  159. 
Onontio,  152,  182. 
Orono,  255. 

Otchipwe  grammar,  456. 
Otermin,  64. 

Ottawas,  171,  203,  328,  456. 
Palou,  92. 

Pareja,  Father  Francis,  36. 
Paris,  Treaty  of,  204,  250. 
Parron,  Hernando,  92. 
Parsons,  Fatlier,  217- 
Paternalism,  96,  112. 
Patuxents,  222. 
Paul  v.,  59. 
Peinado,  Alonso,  57. 
Pelamourgues,  Mr.,  412. 
Penalver,  Louis,  286. 
Penet,  Pierre,  295. 
Penn,  231,  244. 
Penobscots,  255. 
Peorias,  200. 
Perchd,  N.  J.,  478. 
Periods  of  trusteeism,  native  Ameri- 
canism, Civil  War,  and  centennials, 

274- 
Perrot,  Mr.,  296. 
Petiot,  Remegius,  412. 
Petition  by  the  clergy  of   Maryland, 

271. 
I'etre,  Bishop,  247. 
Philadelphia,  see  of,  291,  294,  316. 
Philadelphia  Convention,  258. 
Pierce,  President,  427. 
Piernas,  Don  Pedro,  203. 
Pierron,  Father,  160,  165. 
Pile,  Henry,  259. 
Pineda,  Alvarez  de,  18. 
Pinet,  Francis,  197. 
Pious  Fund,  loi,  108. 
Piscataways,  222,  228. 
Pittsburg,  see  of,  343. 
Pius  VI.,  214,  262. 
Pius  VII.,  213,  281,  291,   293,   303, 

312.  322. 
Pius  VIII.,  306. 

Pius  IX.,  346,  377,  398,  427,  441. 
Plowden,  Sir  Edmund,  230. 
Plymouth,  company  of,  129. 
Polygamy,    I97. 
Poncet,  Father,  154. 


Pons,    Antoinette    de,    Marquise    de 

Guercheville,  126. 
Pontiac,  203. 

Pope,  the  medicine-man,  65. 
Pope's  day,  252. 

Portier,  Michael,  334,  336,  401,  444 
Portola,  93. 
Pott,  Governor,  219. 
Pottowatomies,  190,  328. 
Primiim  Marylandice  sacelltitn,  220. 
Protestants,  214,  221,  225,  227,  236, 

282,  283,  344 ;  version  of  the  Bible, 

356,  366- 

Provencher,  Dr.,  421. 

Pueblo  Indians,  45  ;  description  of  the 
pueblo,  47 ;  their  standpoint  of  de- 
velopment, 49  ;  the  double  tradition, 
50,  60,  62;  cryptopaganisn],  64; 
insurrection,  64;  end,  66. 

Purcell,  John,  387. 

Puritans,  134,  137,  138,  218,  224, 
277. 

Quakers,  232. 

Quapaws,  212. 

Quarter,  William,  414. 

Quebec  Act,  250,  253. 

Queretaro,  80,  83. 

Quincy,  diocese  of,  458. 

Quinlan,  John,  444. 

()uivira.  Gran,  52,  82,  116. 

Quo  Longms,  334. 

Rademacher,  Bishop,  477- 

Radisson,  120. 

Rale,  Sebastian,  138,  140;  price  on 
his  head,  141  ;  death,  143  ;  "  Lettres 
ftdifiantes  ct  Curicuses,"  196. 

Rappe,  Amadeus,  398,  453. 

Ravoux,  Rev.  Augustine,  412,  41 8. 

Raymbault,  Charles,  149. 

Recollects,    119,   130,    136,    168, 
179,  183. 

Reese,  Mr.,  372. 

Regulars,  61,  107. 

"  Relations  of  the  Jesuits,"  163. 

Remur,  Gabriel  Brute  de,  394. 

Rese,  Bishop,  344. 

Reynolds,  Ignatius  Aloysius,  351. 

I^ibault,  John,  29,  30. 

Ribourde,  Gabriel  de  la,  179,  181. 

Richard,  Gabriel,  286,  326. 

Richardie,  Armand  de  la,  327- 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  130. 


514 


INDEX. 


Richmond,  see  of,  300. 

Richter,  J.  H.,  477. 

Rigbee,  Father,  224. 

Riordan,  P.  W.,  480. 

Roberval,  Sieur  de,  117. 

Rodriguez,  Augustine,  54- 

Rogel,  Father,  34. 

Rohan,  Fatlier  WiUiam  de,  284. 

Rosati,  Mr.,  331,  399,  408. 

Rosecrans,  Sylvester  H.,453. 

Roxbury  convent,  383,  392. 

Ryan,  Mr.,  288. 

Ryan,  S.  D.,  476. 

Sagard,    Father,    147;   "  Histoire  du 

Canada,"  168. 
Sahneron,  Father,  58. 
Sahnon,  Anthony,  285. 
San  Bartolomeo,  54. 
San  lilas,  100. 
San  Carlos,  94. 
San  Domingo,  see  of,  15. 
San  Gabriel,  57. 
Santa  Fe,  58,  66. 

Santiago  de  Cuba,  see  of,  15,  36,  37. 
Scanlon,  L.,  480. 
Schaffer,  Leander,  413. 
Schism,  279. 
Schneider,  Father,  246. 
Scioto  Company,  296. 
Scott,  Mayor.,  358. 
Second  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore, 

274.  434-  . 

Second  Provincial  Council,  341 ;  pas- 
toral letter,  342,  367. 

Secret  societies,  63. 

Seculars,  107,  109. 

Sedella,  Antonio,  291. 

Sedeno,  Father,  34. 

Seminary,  first,  276. 

Senecas,  155,  165. 

Serra,  Father  Juniperro,  92,  93  ;  let- 
ter, 97,  loi,  104. 

Seven  Cities  and  Seven  Caves,  50,  51, 
116. 

Seventh  Provincial  Council,  347. 

Severn,  battle  on  the,  229. 

Seville,  see  of,  15. 

Seymour,  Governor,  236. 

Sioux,  184,  187. 

Sister  Mary  John,  380. 

Sisters  of  Charity,  327,  338,  376. 

Sisters  of  Mercy,  376. 


Sitimachas,  209. 
Sixth  Provincial  Council,  345. 
Slav.ery,  21,  41. 
Slocuni,  J.  J.,  366. 
Smith,  Father,  281. 
Smyth,  Timothy,  460. 
Sorin,  Edward,  397. 
Soto,  Hernando  de,  23,  82. 
Souel,  211. 

Souge,  John  Ambrose,  282. 
South,  the  church  of  the,  425,  427. 
Spalding,  J.  L.,  432,  434,  454. 
Spalding,    Martin    J.,   391  ;     life    of, 
432,    433;     circular,    436;     death, 

473- 

Spanish  element  in  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  in  America,  i,  13; 
southeastern  and  southwestern  mis- 
sions, 16;  character  of  policy,  61. 

"  Sportsman's  flail,"  283. 

Spring  Hill  College,  401. 

St.  Ange,  203. 

St.  Benedict  Labre,  276. 

St.  Castin,  Baron  de,  141. 

St.  Cosme,  208,  209. 

St.  Cyr,  413.^ 

St.  Francis  Xavier  del  Bac,  77,  79. 

St.  Louis,  see  of,  346,  457. 

St.  Palais,  Maurice  de,  397,  413,  477. 

St.  Miguel  de  Guevavi,  77,  79. 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  447. 

St.  Pierre,  Paul  de,  2S4. 

Ste.  Croix,  123. 

Stone,  William,  225,  229. 

Success  or  ruin,  112. 

Sulpitians,  276,  277,  280,  285,  293, 
402. 

Surratt,  John,  436. 

Susquehannas,  222. 

Sweat-house,  63, 

Syresne,  Father  James  de,  145. 

Taensas,  208. 

Talbot,  James,  260. 

Talon,  172. 

Tamaron,  Bishop,  7I)  72- 

Taylor,  William,  310. 

Texas,  i,  81;  name,  82;  missions, 
83 ;  small  success,  85 ;  statistics, 
86,  405. 

Thayer,  John,  276,  282,  285. 

Third  Provincial  Council,  343. 

Thomas,  Sir,  217. 


INDEX. 


5' 


Timon,  Bishop,  379,  405. 
Tonnelier,  ^Jolin     Louis     Victor    le, 

296. 
Tonty,  Henri  dc,  179,  196. 
Tosi,  r.,  480. 

Trent,  Council  of,  321,  368. 
Troy,  Arclil)is1iop,  296. 
Trusteeisni,  269,  279,  299,  320,  32J, 

ZZZ^  353,  367,  399- 
Tucson,  79. 

Tyler,  William,  384,  385,  449. 
Union  of  cliurcli  ruul  state,  61,  99. 
"  United  States  Catholic  Miscellany," 

307- 
Upsi,  first  Bishop  of  Creenland,  6. 
Ursulines,  210,  311,  338. 
Vaca,  Cabeza  de,  50. 
Van  de  V'elde,  James  Oliver,  4]  ^,  444, 

458. 
Van  de  Vyver,  A.,  475. 
Var,  Ambrose,  255. 
Vatican  Council,  470. 
Vaughan,  Sir  William,  218. 
Verdaguer,  Peter,  479. 
Vergennes,  261. 
Verot,  Bishop,  442,  475. 
Verrazano,  Giovanni  da,  115,  129. 
Vespucius,  Americus,  17. 
Viel,  Father,  147. 
Vimont,  Father,  149. 
Vincennes,  199. 
Vincennes,  see  of,  394. 


Vinland,  4,  5,   1 1. 

V'irginia,  38;  Company,  218,  219. 

Visitandines,  338. 

Vivier,  F"ather,  202. 

Vizcaino,  90,  92. 

Wadhams,  Y..  P.,  476. 

Walmesley,  Charles,  272. 

Warner,  heather,  231. 

Washington,  252,  254,  273,  289. 

Washington,  the  plan  to  the  city  of,  289. 

Watteau,  Melithon,  180. 

Watterson,  J.  A.,  477. 

W'eld,  Thomas,  272. 

Whelan,  diaries,  285. 

Whelan,  James,  459. 

Whelan,   Richard  Vincent,  344,   348, 
441. 

White,     Father,    220, 
catechism,  225. 

Whitfield,  James,  305, 

Wigger,  W.  M.,  476. 

Willcox,  Thomas,  245. 

Winnebagos,  412. 

Winslow,  132. 

Wood,  Bishop,  437. 

Wriothesley,  Flenry,  Earl  of   South- 
ampton, 217- 

Wyandots,  328. 

Yazoo,  208,  211. 

York,  Cardinal,  248. 

Young,  J.  M.,  439,  440. 

Zuni,  47,  51,  69. 


222 ;     Indian 


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Rev.  a.  H.  Nkwman,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Professor  of  Church  History,  McMaster 
University  of  Toronto,  Ont. 

Rev.  Williston  V^alker,   Ph.D., 

Professor  of  Modern  Church  History, 
Theological  Seminary,  Hartford,  Conn. 

Rkv.  H.  E.  Jacobs,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the 
Ev.  Lutheran  Seminary,  Phila.,  Pa. 

Rev.  J.  M.  Buckley,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Editor  of  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate. 

Rev.   Robert  Ellis  Thompson,  D.D., 
Philadelphia.  Pa. 

Rev.  C.  C.  Tiffany,  D.D., 
New  York. 

Rev.  E.  T.  Corvvin,  D.D., 
Rector  Hertzog  Hall,  New  Brunswick,  N.J. 
German,REv.  J.   H.  Dubbs,  D.D., 

Prof essor  of  History,  Franklyn  and 
Marshall  College,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

Rev.  J.  T.  Hamilton,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Church  History,  Theological 
Seminary,  Bethlehem,  Pa. 

Rev.  T.  O'Gorman,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Church  History,  Catholic 
^University,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  J.  H.  Allen,  D.D., 

Late  Lecturer  on  Ecclesiastical  History, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Rev..  Richard  Eddy,  D.D., 

Providence.  R.  I. 

Rev.  Gross  Alexander,  D.D., 
Profes'Xir    Greek    and    N.  T.  Exegesis, 
Nashville,  Tenn. 

Rev.  Thomas  C.  Johnson,  D.D., 

Professor     Ecclesiastical     History     and 
Polity,  Hampden-Sidney,  Va. 

Rev.  James  B.  Scouller,  D.D., 

Newville,  Pa. 
Rev.  R.  V.  Foster,  D.D., 
Professor  Biblical  Exegesis,  Cumberland 
University,  Lebanon,  Tenn. 

Rev.  R.  B.  Tyler,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Prof.  A.  C.    Thomas,  M.A., 

Haverford  College,  Haverford,  Pa. 
R.    H.  Thomas,   M.D.,   Baltimore,  Md. 
Rev.    D.    BeRGER,  D.D.,  Dayton,   Ohio. 

Rev.  S.   p.  Spreng, 
Editor  Evangelical   Messenger,  Cleve- 
land, Ohio. 

Rev.  Samuel  Macauley  Jackson, 

New  York. 


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